


Two Households IV: Busman's Holiday

by mad_martha



Series: Two Households [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2011-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 194,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry finds out just how long and hot one summer holiday can be …</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted in 26 chapters, and I'm damned if I'll do that again, so I've doubled them all up and pared it down to 13! Also, the original author notes on this story were ridiculous, so I'm putting a trimmed-down version at the end. However, these should be seen first:
> 
> There are one or two issues raised in this story which could be considered contentious. Please do not make the mistake of assuming that the way which these issues has been dealt with reflects my own personal viewpoint.
> 
> Please note that an earlier story of mine called Broomflight is a part of this universe. It's not important for you to read it to understand this story, but if you have read it you might enjoy picking out the bits that overlap.
> 
> There is also a set of floor plans relating to this story [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/253943) which you may like to refer to as you read.

"Why is this house always cold, even at the height of summer?"

"Because if it wasn't, you'd have to find something else to complain about?"

Sirius Black snorted.  "Wouldn't have to look far.  _Nothing_ can make this damned heap fully habitable.  Not even a maximum strength Warming Charm makes any difference to the sheets - they always feel damp.  And there's a funny smell around here.  It's worse when I'm a dog, but I can smell it even when I'm human."

Remus Lupin chuckled.  "Try for a little optimism, Padfoot.  We're spending part of the summer doing up a far bigger Black family mausoleum than this one, remember."

"Don't remind me.  I must have been drinking some of that funny tea you keep at the back of the cupboard to agree to _that_ one."

"Oh yes - I keep that tea especially for coercing you.  Remind me of that the next time I need to twist your arm, will you?"

Sirius chuckled.  "It's not my arm you have to twist to get your own way, Moony!"

"I'll bear that in mind."  Remus closed his eyes and dug himself back into the admittedly lumpy pillow.  He wasn't complaining; he'd slept on worse in his time, although not in several years he was glad to admit.

There was a long pause.  Then Sirius sighed.

"What time is it?"

"I have no idea - why?" Remus murmured.

"I'm wondering if there's time for anything more stimulating than conversation."

Remus caught a wandering hand and held it fast.  "I doubt it.  Where's your watch?  Don't forget you've got an early start today."

"I haven't forgotten.  I set the alarm clock last night."

Remus's eyes popped open.  "Padfoot, you _hexed_ that clock the last time we were here!  It's hardly going to be reliable."

Sirius groaned and stretched out one hand, scrabbling on the bedside table until he located his pocket watch.  Remus listened to the tiny metallic _snick_ as he opened it.

"Shit!  I'm late - "

Sirius had rolled out of bed and seized his trousers from a nearby chair before Remus could find the breath to laugh.

Less than twenty minutes later, he was wandering around the kitchen in his pyjamas, making tea and toast, as Sirius dragged his Auror's robe on, checked his pockets for essentials like his wand and money, and picked up a shrunken bag containing his formal dress robes.

"Are you sure you'll be okay to collect Harry from Kings Cross this afternoon?" Sirius fretted.  "I'll try, but I don't think the hearing will be over in time - "

"Padfoot, just go," Remus told him affectionately.  "Harry and I will be fine.  Don't forget that he has an escort on the train today anyway."

"Who's doing that?"

"I don't know.  Dumbledore said he'd arrange it.  I'm sure it'll be fine, whoever it is."  He reached out and fussily tidied his partner's collar.  "Now go.  And good luck."

"It'll be a bugger if it all goes pear-shaped after all," Sirius grumbled, but he kissed Remus smartly and took off up the stairs to the hallway at a run.  Remus held his breath as he listened, but Sirius hadn't become an Auror by accident; he managed to cross the hallway and exit through the front door without more than the tiniest click Remus picked up with his werewolf hearing.

That was that.  He sighed and sat down to eat his tea and toast, and began to mentally review what he had to get done that day before he could go and collect their godson from the station.

It was going to be a busy summer.

 

xXx

 

It wasn't the first time Remus Lupin had made the trip to Kings Cross on his own to collect Harry.  The tense relationship that had existed between Harry and Sirius up until the early part of that year had made it wiser to minimise contact between the two at stressful times, and it was easier for Remus to deal with the boy rather than Sirius, who had a shorter temper.

All the same, it always felt odd to turn up at the station with all the other parents and relatives.  Remus had never expected to end up in the position of a father, surrogate or otherwise, and let alone to his friend James's troubled teenaged son.  Possibly, he reflected, it was cosmic comeback for his misdeeds as a teenager himself, although lately things had become easier and more rewarding.

Then he saw Harry climbing out of a carriage, his face blank but his eyes raging, and wondered if he would have to revise that opinion after all.

Hermione Granger followed Harry off the train, then the Weasley's girl, Ginny, followed by Neville Longbottom and another, older boy with short blond hair and a Ravenclaw tie hanging out of his pocket.  Remus wondered who he was.

"Never thought I'd have to do this again," a quiet, familiar voice said in his ear.

Remus turned and stared.  "Ted?  Good lord, what are _you_ doing here?"

It was Ted Tonks, a former Ravenclaw boy himself who had been a few years ahead of Remus and Sirius at Hogwarts and was now married to Sirius's cousin Andromeda.  He was of stocky build with untidy blond hair and a smooth, genial face, and he was grinning ruefully at Remus.

"You'll see in a minute," he said in reply to Remus's question.  "How are you?  And how's Sirius keeping?  Andromeda got wind of the hearing today and she was talking about going along to back Sirius up if necessary."

"Good of her," Remus said gratefully.  "Not that Sirius thinks there's any serious legal impediment, but another family member adding her voice will be a help if there's any - ah - interference from the Malfoy quarter."

"I doubt Narcissa could be bothered to stir herself," Ted remarked dryly.

"She might, if there's any chance of bagging the goods for her son."

"No legal claim," Ted said stolidly.  "There's a legitimate male heir, in the direct bloodline, cleared of any previous accusations of wrongdoing.  It would be unprecedented and unjustifiable to pass him over in favour of an indirect female line.  According to Andromeda," he added, amused.  "Besides Andromeda and Bellatrix would be in line before Narcissa if that happened, and Bellatrix … well."

"Ah well - the ways of the Wizengamot are not for the likes of you and me," Remus replied.

"I think the _Wizengamot_ isn't for the likes of you and me these days," Ted observed, "if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean," Remus replied quietly.

"Well, here's your lad and there's mine.  We'll be seeing each other again, Remus, I'm sure.  Take care of yourself."

"And you, Ted."

Remus turned away, still wondering who Ted was there to collect, and saw Harry trudging towards him with an owl cage containing a ruffled Hedwig in one hand and dragging his trunk with the other.  He looked thoroughly fed up, but to Remus's relief and pleasure when the boy set eyes on him he dragged up a very weary grin.  He opened his arms, smiling, and Harry dumped the trunk to give him the required hug.  He smelled of young man's sweat and musk, overlaid by savoury pastry, chocolate and old railway carriage; combined scents that made Remus's nostrils flare on the run up to a full moon, but he hugged the boy tightly, not at all surprised by the sudden surge of wolf-like protective instincts.  Harry was part of his family and he was back where he belonged, however temporarily.

Remus released him reluctantly. 

"Well?" he asked the boy, smiling.

Harry snorted a little.  "Can we go, please?  That was the most hideous journey ever."

Remus raised a brow, but before he could ask Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley were both there, looking determined. 

"Have a good summer, Harry," Hermione said, unfazed by his grumpy expression.

Harry grunted ungraciously, and Remus had to swallow a laugh.  If Harry had been forced to spend the journey in her company, then there was no need to go looking for the source of the boy's ill-humour.  He smiled at the two girls to cover Harry's lack of response.

"Hermione … Ginny.  How are you both?  Any plans for the summer?"

They were both quite eager to chat to him, which amused Remus even more for he could feel Harry quietly seething at his side.  Then no sooner had they moved off to find their respective families than Ted walked up, accompanied by the strange Ravenclaw boy.  Ted nodded amiably.

"I'll be seeing you, Remus!"

"See you, Ted …."  Remus stared at the boy, bemused, and was astonished when the young man winked and grinned at him before following Ted out of the barrier into Kings Cross.

"Who was that lad with Ted Tonks?" he asked Harry, as they waited for their turn.

Harry's voice was sour enough to curdle milk.  "That was Tonks."

It took Remus a moment to register what he was saying.  Then his own good humour diminished a little.  It certainly explained Harry's mood.

"I see," he said dryly after a moment.

"Yeah.  My _bodyguard_ ," Harry said a little bitterly.  "Did you know?"

"I knew someone would be on the train, but not who it was.  And I'm pretty sure she wasn't supposed to stay so close to you, but … let's worry about that when we get home.  Here, let's release Hedwig, then we can shrink her cage and put it in your trunk.  One less thing to carry."  He watched as Harry helped the owl out of her cage and let her flap and stretch her wings for a minute or two.  "Grimmauld Place, Hedwig.  We'll meet you there."

"Grimmauld Place?" Harry said, surprised, when the owl had flown away.

"Just for tonight."  Remus steered Harry toward the barrier, where the elderly guard was waving them through.  "And I'm afraid we have to take a Muggle taxi there, since there's no convenient Floo point nearby and I'm under orders not to take you into Diagon Alley."

Fortunately, there was no space to discuss this as Kings Cross Station was insanely busy as usual.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry asked, as they joined the queue for taxis at the station entrance.

"He'll be joining us later.  He had some business at the Ministry."  Remus shot Harry a quick, reassuring smile.  "Nothing to worry about.  I expect he'd like to tell you about it himself, though."

The taxi smelled even worse than the carriage residue on Harry's clothes, when they finally climbed inside.  Remus breathed shallowly through his mouth, reminding himself that mostly he liked London when it wasn't this close to a full moon. 

"Why are we going to Grimmauld Place?" Harry asked when the taxi was under way.  "Is it just a convenient place to go to the Manor from?  Because I thought I remembered Sirius telling me once that it isn't connected to the network."

"We had business in London anyway, which makes it easier to stay at Grimmauld Place for a night or two.  And there's somewhere else we need to visit before we go to the Manor."  Remus was reluctant to say more in a taxi with a Muggle driver listening in.  "Don't worry, I'll explain when we get there.  In the meantime, read this and memorise it, would you?"  He handed the boy a piece of card containing the exact address in Dumbledore's handwriting.

A year ago Harry might have sulked at not being told everything at once, but now he simply nodded and said no more until they were deposited on the scruffy kerbside of Grimmauld Place.  Remus paid the taxi driver, then glanced around warily.  It was a depressingly run-down area, the scrubby patch of grass in the middle of the square covered in litter and the grand Georgian houses dirty, dilapidated and, in several cases, burned out and boarded up.  One of the many reasons why the house was becoming unfeasible as headquarters was the number of empty properties nearby that had to be rigorously searched and warded all the time to prevent any chance of them becoming Death Eater vantage points.  Leaving wards in Muggle buildings could actually make them more dangerous; a sturdy set of wards was practically a smoke signal telling anyone who was looking that there were wizards active in an otherwise Muggle area.

"Bit of a dump," Harry remarked matter-of-factly.

His reaction was a far cry from that of most members of the Order of the Phoenix, many of whom regarded the area as the most horrible evidence that Muggles were degenerates and barbarians.

"Got that bit of card?" Remus asked him, and Harry handed it over.  Remus quickly made it vanish.  "All right.  You need to focus your mind on what you memorised …."

And suddenly, with a kind of silent _whoosh_ , there it was - number twelve appeared between numbers eleven and thirteen and the semi-circle of buildings somehow seemed to expand to accommodate it.

"Cool," Harry said.

"Come on, let's get inside …." 

Remus helped the boy drag the trunk up the steps and tapped discreetly on the front door with his wand.  It swung open, revealing a relatively clean but very worn hallway, and they shuffled inside, letting the door shut quietly behind them.

Remus said softly, "Let's take your things up to your room, then we'll get something to eat."

"Okay."

Harry grabbed the handle of the trunk and too late did Remus remember that the boy wasn't actually familiar with this house, in spite of the stories he had been told.  The heavy box made a disastrously loud scraping sound against the bare boards of the hallway floor and before he could move or say anything, the curtains covering a huge old picture frame facing the stairs flew open.

The blood-curdling scream the portrait let out was nothing unusual, but this close to the full moon it nearly incapacitated Remus.  He clapped his hands over his ears and nearly yelled himself with the pain, barely registering that Harry had dropped the trunk in shock and stumbled back against the stairs.  The boy was staring at the portrait - at the rolling, bulging eyes, shrieking mouth and clawing hands - white faced with horror.

Just in time Remus saw his hand go to his sleeve and leapt at the boy.

" _No,_ Harry!"

It was a near thing, but the wand was knocked out of the teenager's hand and the two of them ended up on the floor in a heap.  The old woman in the portrait took one blessed pause for breath, then started her ear-piercing rant.

_"FILTH!  SCUM!  HALF-BREED FREAKS AND MONSTERS!  HOW DARE YOU INVADE THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS - "_

Harry was shaking in horrible, bone-deep jolts that upset Remus far more than the usual insults from a sheet of canvas and oil-paint.  He pulled the boy against his chest, covering his ears and wishing he could do the same for himself.  Eventually she would run out of steam, but not yet unfortunately.

_"FOUL, SODOMISING MUTANT, YOU DARE TO BRING THE LOATHSOME SPAWN OF THAT BLACK, GRINNING IMP HERE - "_

Somewhere deep in the house a door was thrown open; thundering footsteps approached and to Remus's intense gratitude Sirius burst into the hallway with his wand out.  The shrieks changed, becoming yet more piercing.

_"YOOOOOOOU!  CHANGLING!  CUCKOO IN MY NEST!  KNIFE THROUGH THE HEARTS OF MY ANCESTERS - "_

But Sirius had finally learned not to bandy words with the portrait and simply hit it with a Stunning Hex that fairly sizzled the air with the power behind it.  The old woman slumped in her frame, eyes still rolling, and he was able to close the curtains over her without interference.

The silence had a ringing quality all of its own, Remus discovered, but his sole preoccupation was with Harry whose reaction to the incident was the most extreme he had seen yet.

"It's all right," he soothed.  "It was just a picture …."

Sirius scooped up Harry's wand and crossed the hallway to them.

"Miserable old hag," he said viciously.  "Harry, are you all right?"

"I forgot to warn him," Remus said, as he helped the boy up.  "I'm sorry, Harry, I forgot you hadn't actually seen that portrait before."

Harry was still shaking.  "Who - what - "

"My mother," Sirius said with concentrated disgust.

"Your - ?  Oh my God …."

"Tell me about it."  Sirius shoved the trunk up against the wall.  "Leave that.  Let's go downstairs and get some tea - I think we all need it."

The kitchen wasn't the cheeriest of places, but it was better than the drawing room upstairs.  Sirius apparently hadn't been back long; his formal robe was hanging over the back of one of the chairs and he was still wearing dress trousers with a crisp white shirt, waistcoat and neatly-tied cravat.  He went straight to the range and lit it, swinging the kettle over the flame, while Remus guided Harry into a chair at the table.  The teenager was  pale with shock.

Sirius handed him his wand.  "Are you all right?"

Harry nodded unconvincingly.  "What - what did she mean?  About spawn of a black imp?"

Remus smiled humourlessly.  "That was a reference to you, I'm afraid.  She detested your father, and you do look extraordinarily like him."

"Although she only started openly expressing that opinion after your grandfather died," Sirius added.  "She was all sickly smiles and condescension while he was alive, because he was a powerful man and even my mother wasn't arrogant enough to think she could alienate him and not suffer for it socially."

"Why did she hate my dad though?"

Sirius shrugged.  "He was a friend of mine.  What's not to hate in that?"

Harry looked warily at Remus, who smiled.

"The sodomising mutant is me," he said.  "That's a new addition to her repertoire.  She always detested me and wouldn't let me in the house while she was alive, but since Sirius informed her that we're handfasted she's taken her hatred to new depths.  I can't imagine why."

Harry managed a tiny snuffle of laughter and Remus felt some of the tension in his shoulders release.  It was usual for a newcomer to be appalled by Mrs. Black's portrait, but Harry's reaction worried him and he felt sure there was more to it than just shock.

"Feeling a bit better?" he asked Harry carefully.  "Frankly, I would have expected you to yell back at her."

There was a sticky pause while Harry visibly considered whether to answer or not.  Sirius tried to cover it by make a bit of a fuss with the teapot and cups.

"I thought it was Aunt Petunia for a minute," the boy muttered finally.

"Aunt Petunia?" Remus said as casually as he could manage. 

"Yeah.  Sometimes she'd get pissed off with me, really pissed off.  And she'd, you know, yell and stuff.  There was that time when Aunt Marge came to stay - "

"You don't have an Aunt Marge," Sirius said sharply, looking around from the range.

Harry twitched.  "She's Uncle Vernon's sister - the one I blew up just before third year."

"I remember," Remus said.  He grimaced.  "Minerva McGonagall told me about it when I reached Hogwarts at the start of term.  I believe the Obliviators had a particularly difficult time trying to modify her memory."

"Sounds about right," Harry mumbled.  "She set her dog on me.  Cow."

Sirius thought he detected a note of anxiety in his godson's voice. 

"You're not going back there," he reminded him firmly.

The teenager nodded and finally seemed to relax.

"So this is Grimmauld Place," he said, looking around.

Sirius and Remus exchanged wry smiles.

"Yep," Sirius agreed.  "This is Grimmauld Place.  I'd say "Welcome home", Harry, but hopefully you won't ever have to call this place that."

 

xXx

 

Harry wriggled his toes against the warm, flannel-wrapped brick at the bottom of his bed.  He'd heard of people doing something like this in the past, but until Sirius actually cast a concentrated Warming Charm on the brick, wrapped it up and told him to put it in his bed, he'd assumed it was something that had gone out of fashion with the Victorians.

"It's the only thing that really works," his godfather had told him rather grimly.

Harry had to admit that it did take the chill off the sheets rather effectively, which was just as well because this place was _cold_.  It was the most uninviting house he'd ever been in, making even his Muggle aunt and uncle's house in Surrey seem cosy and welcoming.  Thanks to his early upbringing, though, Harry was made of stern stuff and the shadowy room with its dingy wallpaper and small, ill-fitting window didn't daunt him. 

Not once he'd thoroughly checked the hulking wardrobe in the corner and covered up the mirror, anyway.

It was early, but he'd had a relatively early night thanks to his long journey and a hearty meal, followed by a minor Order meeting with Dumbledore which, for a change, Harry had been allowed to attend.  Mostly it had been concerned with arrangements for his stay at Hogwarts and the clearing of Black Manor that would follow.  There had been other interesting stuff as well, though.

 

"Before we discuss the plan of action for Black Manor," Dumbledore said, "tell me, Sirius - how did you fare at the hearing today?"

Sirius sat back, twisting his goblet of butterbeer thoughtfully.  "It was interesting," he said.  "Not nearly as difficult as I anticipated, mostly an exchange of documents and some extended legalese.  There were representatives from Gringotts and the Ministry, of course, and a lot of wrangling over whether I was ever formally disinherited."

"Is there a doubt about that?" Harry asked, surprised.

Sirius smiled twistedly.  "There's a big difference between my mother throwing me out and blasting me off the family tree, and my father formally petitioning the Wizengamot to expunge me from the records.  He cut off my allowance and registered an Intent To Disinherit, but he died before the Wizengamot could sit in judgement.  And when both Regulus and I ended up in Azkaban practically simultaneously, there was a sudden shortage of direct, legitimate heirs and the whole business was abandoned."

Harry looked from one to the other.  "I don't understand - I know the Ministry seized your assets when you went to Azkaban, but if you've already got possession of this house and Black Manor, why do you need to go to a hearing?"

"Because the Ministry was only able to seize my family's assets on the understanding that Regulus was the heir," Sirius explained.  "If I'm still the heir and I wasn't guilty of anything, then they have to give it all back.  And while they'll hand over two houses which are of little use or value to them without much argument, they aren't so keen to release the financial assets that were seized when my brother was convicted of capital crimes.  They'd like to keep the money if they can, so they're fighting to prove that I was formally disinherited."

"Disinheriting anyone from one of the First Families takes far more than his or her parents casting them out and expunging a name from the family tree, Harry," Dumbledore said.  "Any child born into the family, legitimate or otherwise, must first be formally acknowledged by the _paterfamilias_ before witnesses, or he is not entitled to bear the family name.  His or her inheritance is then negotiated by the child's parents with the _paterfamilias_ and family legal counsellors and set down in a legally binding document.  In the case of the firstborn male heir, such as yourself or Sirius, the assumption of inheritance is also written into this document.  Should the _paterfamilias_ later wish to remove the right of inheritance, he must first register an Intent To Disinherit with the Wizengamot and at a later date the Wizengamot will decide the matter.  The heir is commonly given five years to lodge an appeal.  But the Intent To Disinherit is not in itself enough to remove an heir.  Sirius has already pointed out that his father died shortly after beginning the proceedings, and Sirius himself had no opportunity to lodge an appeal.  So the ground is decidedly shaky in the Ministry's case."

"And all this has been seriously complicated by Gringotts," Ted Tonks said from the other side of the table.  "All wizard finances are handled by the goblins of Gringotts and they don't readily hand over the gold of old wizard families to the Ministry just because the heir is sent to Azkaban.  They indefinitely extend legal wrangling over Ministry seizures, because it doesn't do them any good in everyday business to be seen by the wealthy pureblood families as too ready to accommodate the Ministry such things.  The goblins have been holding out on this since Mrs. Black died."

"In other words, Harry, the Ministry never actually got their hands on the Black family gold," Remus put in.  "The assets were frozen and now that Sirius is a free man he has to sort it all out."

"We'll need that money to do up the Manor, amongst other things," Sirius said.  "It all hinges on whether the Ministry can persuade Wizengamot representatives that I would have been disinherited, and I'm hoping the goblins will back me up and refuse to accept that."

"They almost certainly will," Dumbledore remarked.  "With things the way they are in the Ministry these days, the goblins will be far more interested in currying favour with the current head of the Noble House of Black."

Harry noted Sirius's distasteful grimace at this title, but his godfather didn't comment.

"Were the Malfoys represented at the hearing?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked from the far end of the table.

"Narcissa turned up, with Lucius's legal advisors," Sirius replied, his lip curling.  "They were only allowed to present a written statement though.  Ditto for the Snape family advisors, although I notice Severus didn't bother to show up."

"It would have looked odd had he _not_ made representations to the hearing, dear boy," Dumbledore said mildly.  "He wisely kept his distance, however, considering Madam Malfoy's attendance."

"And Andromeda came along and submitted a statement."  Sirius flashed a grin at Ted. 

"Did Narcissa acknowledge her?" Emmeline Vance asked curiously, from where she sat next to Kingsley.

"No."

"In fairness, I doubt Andromeda acknowledged Narcissa," Ted commented.

"It's horrible when that happens in a family."

Harry thought that it was probably a more normal state of affairs than most people were willing to acknowledge.  Sirius hadn't got along with his brother Regulus, by all accounts.  Harry's Aunt Petunia had detested her sister Lily Potter.  And there were rumours that Dumbledore himself had a very odd brother living in Hogsmeade who was almost never seen.  Possibly it was better to be an only child, he thought, although the Weasley siblings mostly seemed to brush along all right.

"Horrible or not, the question now is whether three years of petitions have been successful," Dumbledore observed.  "Sirius?"

"Impossible to say what the outcome will be," Sirius replied with a sigh.  "I'll know in a few weeks.  I have to say that it seemed remarkably anticlimactic after all the fuss and bother we've been put to, but that's how it goes sometimes."

"If the worst comes to the worst, we'll sell some of the furniture up at the Manor, renovate a few rooms and start renting them out," Remus said in a practical tone, and there was some laughter around the table.

Sirius grinned.

"Since we're on the subject of inheritances," he said, when the chuckles had died away, "there's the question of a certain person's upcoming majority."

Everyone looked at Harry, who reddened under the attention despite his best efforts to look nonchalant.

"Am I inheriting something then?" he asked.

"Not a lot, I'm afraid," Remus said, smiling slightly.  "A small increase on your allowance, that's all.  But because you're reaching your magical majority Sirius and I have to present you to your trustees and a few other individuals, so that they can make sure we're taking proper care of you, etcetera."

"So who are my trustees?"

Harry's eyes went to Sirius as he said this, but his godfather shook his head, amused.

"Not me.  I'm your legal guardian, and under our laws I'm prohibited from having control over your fortune in case it tempts me to spend it."

"Your father and grandfather made very careful provisions for you when you were born, Harry," Dumbledore said kindly.  "Your trustees are your mother's friend Morag MacDuff, myself and your grandfather's good friend Petuarius Pettifer.  There is also a firm of solicitors who have been entrusted with your family's business for several hundred years, and on this occasion there will be representatives from Gringotts present."

Harry was mystified.  "All this for a couple of extra Galleons a month?"

Ted Tonks chuckled.

"No, they just want to make sure you're nice and healthy," Sirius said wryly.  "Since you don't come into your full inheritance until you're twenty-one, they want to reassure themselves that they don't need to start scouring the family tree for the next most eligible heir."

"Oh."

"You are the last of your line, Harry," Dumbledore pointed out.  "You may not be aware of this, but you came into the world "clothed and shod" as the saying goes, and your inheritance will be substantial.  There is a house, money, and significant financial holdings waiting for you to grow up and claim them."

"Not to mention the prestige behind your family name," Kingsley Shacklebolt remarked in his deep voice.  "Your grandfather commanded universal respect.  It may seem to you, young Potter, that our Ministry has taken against you, but their opinion will be a small consideration when you discover how many doors your name will open for you across Europe.  Henry Potter's grandson will be welcome in places where Malfoys dare not present their card."

"Or Blacks for that matter," Sirius remarked idly.  "There's a reason why so many of the First Families are so insular, you know.  They've managed to piss off so many people that they can't go anywhere without getting doors slammed in their faces."

"Getting back to the point," Remus said gently.

Sirius smiled.  "Yes – the point, Harry, is that we need to pay a visit to your family home and prime the house-elves for a brief invasion on the thirty-first.  They'll probably be thrilled, provided they haven't all gone barmy like old Kreacher."

Harry stared at him.  "There are house-elves?"

"Six of them, I think," Remus confirmed. 

Harry's good humour vanished.

"Six!  How long have they been there?" he demanded.

Sirius's brows went up.  "All their lives, I would imagine.  Most house-elves are born into the service of a particular family and never leave."

"Are you saying they've been left on their own for nearly _seventeen years_ in some mouldy old house?"

There was a startled pause, then Dumbledore said quietly, "Not in the way that Kreacher was left in this house, Harry.  I believe you are familiar with Kreacher and his history?"

"I've seen him," Harry said tensely.  "He's completely round the twist and all the other school elves get really upset when he does or says something weird."

"Kreacher was left for over ten years with no one but the portraits in the house for company.  It is not in the nature of a house-elf to react positively to such an environment.  The case with your family's servants is different – there are several of them, of varying ages, and they were never bound so cruelly to the house and family that they could not leave its environs when they wished.  They are, I believe, sociable and content and living in comfort.  It was their choice to stay at The Rose House and keep it in order for the day one of the family returned, whenever that might be."

"Choice?"  Harry pounced on the word.  "They were given a choice?"

Dumbledore met his eyes squarely.  "Yes, they were given a choice, by your father.  He wasn't sure what would happen when he and your mother went into hiding with you, so he offered to free any of the elves who might wish it or make other arrangements for them.  None accepted his offer."

Harry relaxed.  "That's different, then."

A short while later, he was helping Sirius to put together tea and cakes for the assembly when his ever-alert ears picked up a low-voiced comment from Kingsley Shacklebolt to Remus.

"Rather unexpected reaction, don't you think?  I wouldn't have thought the boy would have cared one way or the other about house-elves."

Harry controlled the urge to whip round and tell Shacklebolt precisely what he thought of this opinion, which was just as well as Dumbledore apparently overheard it too.

"I have found it unwise to make assumptions about just what Harry does and doesn't care about, Kingsley," he said, before Remus could reply.  "Indeed, I find it better not to make assumptions about him at all.  I would remind you - as I ceaselessly remind all of our fellowship - that there is more to Harry than a Slytherin uniform.  _Please_ strive to keep that in mind."

 

xXx

 

Harry wondered what the time was now.  He had a small foldaway alarm clock that he took to school with him, but he'd forgotten to take it out of his trunk the night before.  There was some light filtering through the shadowed windows of his room, but not enough to tell him how high the sun was, and there were no sounds to suggest that Sirius or Remus was up.

In the end he sighed and dragged himself out of bed.  He dug fresh clothes out of his trunk and crept out of his room to find the bathroom.

Harry wondered if there was some kind of silencing charm at work in the house.  It was eerily quiet as he padded softly down the passage, with no more noise than the grandfather clock in the hallway ticking and his own quiet breathing.  For the life of him he couldn't work out why such silence was necessary, even considering old Mrs. Black's portrait in the hall.  He found the bathroom, which, while still retaining some of its old-fashioned fittings, had clearly been extensively renovated only recently, and took a quick shower.

By the time he was finished and dressed, there was more sense of life in the house.  Harry wandered downstairs, self-consciously pressing the corner of a handkerchief to a nick on his jaw, and found Remus puttering around the kitchen in slippers and a tweed dressing gown.  Bread, eggs, bacon, sausages and tomatoes were laid out on the kitchen table and the older man was irritably cursing the range as he tried to light it.  He gave Harry a quick smile as he walked in, though.

"Morning!  I was going to bring you and Sirius a cup of tea, but I can't make this wretched thing light … ah!  There."  The range burst into life and Remus swung the kettle over it.  He turned back to Harry.  "Would you keep an eye on it until I'm dressed?"

"Okay.  Want me to start breakfast?"  Harry took a heavy iron frying pan and toasting fork off the hooks above the range.

"If you like.  I shan't be long."

Remus paused before he left the kitchen, though, and touched a gentle fingertip to Harry's jaw.  "Ouch!  Blunt razor?"

Harry flushed and ducked his head, embarrassed.  "Dunno."

"Probably was.  Remind one of us to give you a new one tomorrow."

When he was gone Harry got the teapot ready and spent the next ten minutes or so amusing himself by toasting a stack of bread.  Some modern Muggle inventions, he felt, were not such good ideas as these old methods.  Using a toasting fork didn't take much longer than a toaster oven and he'd found that once he had the knack the browning was far more even and precise.  He and Remus liked their toast fairly light and golden, but Sirius liked his very dark and crisp.  By the time Sirius himself walked into the kitchen, humming lightly, there were three plates of toast on the warming shelf above the range, and Harry was laying bacon slices in the frying pan.

"Ah!  You're a good 'un," he said to Harry.  "Here - let's get a second pan.  You put the sausages in with the bacon, and I'll do the tomatoes and eggs."

They were watching the breakfast cook, when Sirius suddenly said, "You tried to shave without your glasses on, didn't you?"

Harry looked up, astonished, and saw a slight smile on his godfather's face.  "How did you - ?"

"Your dad used to do the same thing.  It's a wonder he never cut his throat."  Sirius chuckled.  "He used to say he couldn't see his nose if he was wearing them.  God knows what that had to do with it!"

Harry grinned reluctantly.  "There's a funny reflection in the mirror if I wear them.  And I get foam on the lenses."

"One of the barbers in Hogsmeade sells a self-foaming safety razor.  If we get a chance while you're at Hogwarts, I'll take you in there."

"That's an excellent idea," Remus said, as he walked back into the kitchen, fully dressed.  "In fact, you could get yourself one while you're at it and throw away that horrible thing you use."

"You're just jealous because you don't have a steady enough hand for a cut-throat razor," Sirius scoffed.

"You may mock me," Remus retorted, "but one slip and I'll be a penniless widower, out on the street with a teenager to support.  Narcissa would inherit the Manor and this place by default, turning Grimmauld Place into a boarding house for foreign language students, and the Manor into an exclusive health spa charging fifty Galleons for a sauna and massage.  Meanwhile, Harry and I would have to throw ourselves on Petunia Dursley's mercy and end our days living in her attic space and eating scraps from her dustbin …."

He stopped.  Sirius and Harry were staring at him as though he was barking like a sea-lion.  He shrugged and reached over Harry's shoulder, stealing a slice of half-cooked bacon from the pan.

"Alternatively, I could become a romantic novelist.  We'd still have to live in an attic until I made a name for myself, though."

"It's the full moon," Sirius said to Harry.  "It gives him weird ideas."

"Aunt Petunia wouldn't let us near her attic space," Harry pointed out.  "Besides, it's got that insulation stuff in it that's dangerous to breathe."

"It'll have to be Andromeda's attic then."

"If she makes the pair of you live in her attic, I'll come back and haunt her," Sirius said robustly.  "Besides, I'm not planning to cut my throat just yet, so let's stop being morbid, shall we?  And stop eating raw bacon!  It's still three days to the full moon."

"It's not nearly as tasty when it's frizzled up," Remus grumbled.

They were eating breakfast when Sirius suddenly turned to Remus and said with a laugh in his voice, "A _health spa?_ "

Remus shrugged.  "Maybe if the bathhouse was fixed up."

Sirius snorted a laughter.  "The clients would take on a new lease of life, just by surviving the experience!"

 

xXx

 

After breakfast Harry went back upstairs with Sirius and collected his trunk.  Sirius shrank it until it was only slightly bigger than a matchbox and tucked it away inside his robes. 

"We won't be coming back here," he said, and Harry thought he heard a note of relief in his godfather's voice.

"How will we get to my grandparents' house?" he asked curiously.

"Apparate," Sirius replied shortly.  "Side-along Apparition can be a little bit risky, but we don't have authorisation for a portkey and none of the Floos would be open, even if it was possible to Floo from here.  And flying is out of the question in daylight." 

They returned to the kitchen, where Remus was running a finicky eye over everything to make sure nothing had been forgotten.

"Where are we Apparating to?" he asked Sirius.  "Front drive?"

"Better do that, I think.  I know the outer wards will let us through, but I don't want to risk Apparating through the house wards until we're sure they recognise Harry."  Sirius looked concerned for a moment.  "I honestly don't remember if James had time to introduce him – "

"Hey!  I'm still here," Harry reminded them a little crossly.  "What are you talking about?"

Remus looked at him.  "It's traditional in wizard families to introduce a new baby to the household wards when he's a few days old.  It's practically a ceremony in the First Families.  But there was so much going on when you were born that we're not sure if you were introduced to the wards at The Rose House, and if you weren't and we tried to Apparate you directly into the house – well, I'm not sure exactly what would happen, but probably you'd end up caught inside a trap-spell of some sort.  So we're going to Apparate to the front drive first and try the household wards in a more conventional manner."

"Such as?" Harry demanded suspiciously.

"You touch the door-handle and wait to see what happens," Sirius replied.  "If the wards don't 'know' you, you won't be able to open the door, it's as simple as that."

Harry had to be satisfied with this, but he had one more question.  "If I was born in Godric's Hollow – "

"You weren't," Sirius said briskly.  "You were born at The Rose House and for the first few months of your life you were fussed over by a house-elf nurse who'll probably expire of excitement when she claps eyes on you.  Now, are you ready?  Come here, then, and hang on tight."

Harry found it easier to close his eyes when Sirius Apparated.  It was a weird feeling, like being pulled in two different directions through a tight rubber tube; then his feet landed on gravel and he blinked in the bright sunlight.  A sudden loud pop heralded Remus's arrival beside them.

"Not looking too bad," Sirius remarked.  "I expected the garden to be more overgrown, but with six house-elves here …."

"Mo MacDuff's been keeping an eye on things," Remus replied.  "She visits every three months, I believe."

Harry wasn't really listening.  It was too busy looking at his family home.

The three of them stood in the middle of a gravel driveway that was bordered by low bushes.  It led up to a small Elizabethan-style manor house built of red stone that had ivy on the walls, roses trained around an ancient-looking arched door, and broad flower beds beneath its many-paned windows.  It was a pretty place set, when Harry looked, in extensive grounds.  To one side of the drive was a broad lawn; on the other a formal garden.  The drive curved around the side of the house and presumably led around to the back.

"Well," Remus said after an extended pause.  "Shall we?"

They walked slowly up to the arched door and mounted the uneven stone steps.  Harry found himself staring at a large black iron ring-handle that was the most imposing feature of the banded and studded wooden door.  The door wasn't quite a match for the rest of the building, he noticed; it seemed to belong to something that was much older.

"Just try to turn it," Sirius prompted him quietly.  "The worst that can happen is nothing.  It certainly won't bite, like the knocker at the Manor."

"Okay …." 

It was heavy and Harry had to lift it with both hands to turn it.  Almost immediately he felt _something_ , like a whispering breath across his palms, as though the house had sighed ….  There was a soft _clunk_ and the door opened under his hands.

"Mind the step," Remus warned him, just in time. 

There was a stone ridge where the old steps met the newer building.  Harry stepped over it carefully and blinked again as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside the house.  It was an entrance hall made of stone flags with rugs on the floor, with a window to the left of the door that contained a wooden settle and a broom rack on the right.  The broom rack held three elderly brooms in good repair; next to it was an umbrella stand containing an assortment of walking sticks and parasols.  There was a staircase across the hallway with wide, carved banister rails, and a passage ran down the side of it leading to a number of doorways.  It was all absolutely quiet and still, as one would expect an unoccupied house to be, but also perfectly clean and tidy, without a speck of dust or anything else to suggest that the house had been shut up for nearly seventeen years.

"Well, we're all inside," Remus said, breaking the silence.  "That's a start.  Sirius, see if you can summon one of the elves."

Sirius shot him an amused look, but he cleared his throat and clapped his hands loudly, twice.  And between one breath and the next a house-elf appeared, making Harry jump.

He was quite elderly, with soft, wrinkled skin and a set of side whiskers, the first Harry had ever seen on a house-elf.  His bearing was upright though, clearly proud of the office he held, and he wore a pristine, well-pressed teacloth banded in bottle-green and gold and stamped with a family crest in one corner.  He whisked to a halt before the three of them, looking almost haughtily from one face to another until his eyes came to rest on Harry.  They widened at once and the creature drew in a sharp breath to say one deeply reverential word.

_"Master …."_

 

xXx

 

"…And you're sure you're all right here?" Harry asked awkwardly.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, being plied with tea and cakes and fussed over by the eight elves bound to the Potter family's service (apparently there had been some additions to their ranks in the years since his parents' deaths).  It was a little overwhelming being the focus of so much avid attention; they had little or no interest in Sirius or Remus when a member of _their_ family had finally returned to them.

"Master must not worry about us.  Master must know that we is happy to do our duty and care for his house while he is too young to be here."

This was stated with great authority by Drooby, who was head of the Potter family elves and apparently filled a role similar to that of butler.  It was he who had greeted Harry at the front door.  He was ably seconded by a 'housekeeper' female called Dilly who was almost as old as he; besides those two were Bolly and Pucksy (primarily 'chamber' elves), Wibsey and Keppy (kitchen elves), Looby (a garden elf) and another elderly female called Maffy who had been Harry's nurse directly after his birth and was even now stroking his hair tenderly and crooning over him.  Apparently she had been his father's nurse as well.

It might be little intense, but Harry was mostly undisturbed by the excess of house-elf interest.  He'd spent a lot of time around the school house-elves from his second year onwards and was used to their behaviour and customs.  When Ron had told him about Hermione Granger's obsession with house-elf rights, Harry had been incredulous and scornful; he already knew that provided they were treated decently, they had no interest in the kind of 'rights' humans considered important.  House-elf culture was symbiotic, revolving around service to wizardkind, and an elf who preferred to be unbound – like, for example, Dobby – was a social deviant in their terms.  But even Dobby considered service to a good master more important than payment. 

Harry accepted their societal structure and, beyond ensuring that they were not mistreated in any way, did not offend the elves by interfering with it.  It was not a problem in his eyes that his family had such a significant number of elves bound to them; they were clearly healthy and contented, in spite of having spent the better part of two decades existing in a state of some uncertainty about their future, and to Harry, who had lived in worse conditions himself once, it didn't seem such a bad life.

Maffy had been muttering to herself ever since she'd coaxed Harry into the kitchen "for feeding up".  While the others beamed at him, presenting him with their names and a respectful bow, and pressing food and drink on him, she was rumbling on over his head, nursing a significant grievance.

"…Sent to live with wicked Muggles, and without even old Maffy to care for him, what would the old mistress have said to that, and the master too if he'd known?  All of a piece with that flighty Black boy, never was there a drop of good blood in that family, and often and often the old mistress said he wasn't raised right …."

Harry smothered a grin.  Maffy might seem maternal and diffident, but she appeared to enjoy an unusual status both among elves _and_ wizards – and she had no respect for Sirius whatsoever.  When she'd finished weeping over Harry in the hall, she'd rounded on his godfather and proceeded to tear his character to shreds.  In vain had Dilly and Drooby tried to draw her off, deeply embarrassed by her behaviour, but Sirius – Sirius stood there and _took it_.  That was the bigger surprise for Harry, and he wasn't sure what to make of it.

Drooby finally tried to call her to order again. 

"Maffy, the young Master is wishing to see his house now!"

She gave in reluctantly and there was a brief squabble as the elves discussed who would have the privilege of showing Harry around.  In the end, it was decided by Drooby that they should all attend their usual posts, while Dilly escorted Harry over the house.  The individual elves could then present their particular domains in turn.  Drooby himself gravely suggested to Harry that it might be best if he, meanwhile, attended to Sirius and Remus in "the old Master's" study.  Equally gravely, Harry agreed to this and he and Dilly set off – inevitably with Maffy in tow, still fussing softly.

They stopped briefly by the study.

"I'm, um, going to look around if that's okay," Harry told his godparents.  They were looking through a stack of paperwork on a grand desk at the end of the room, by a long window.

Remus looked up and smiled.  "Of course!  Don't worry, we'll find you if we need you."

"Okay – "

There was a soft hiss at Harry's elbow and Sirius suddenly retreated behind the desk.  Maffy was directing a blistering glare at him. 

"Young Master is too thin," she stated accusingly.  "You is not feeding him properly."

Sirius's mouth opened and closed silently, and he looked helplessly at Remus, who was also eyeing Harry's elderly nurse with misgiving.

"That's not true, Nurse," he said in a conciliatory tone.  "Harry has access to as much food as he wants.  He's a sensible lad – he doesn't overindulge, that's all."

As much as Harry would have liked to let this scene develop a little, he was conscious of an undertone to it that was a little worrying and quickly stepped in to help his godparents.

"Really, Maffy, I'm fine," he said.  "I can raid the pantry whenever I like, I'm never hungry."

"Hm."  The nurse wasn't ready to let it go just yet.  "Young Master is too pale."

Dilly began to wring her hands.

"Not really," Harry said, trying to sound reassuring.  "I was ill recently, that's all."

Her eyes snapped to his face at once.  "Young Master is not well?"

Oh lord.  "I'm fine now.  I burned my hands – "

She was examining them at once, her nose a bare inch from his palms.  "Who is burning young Master's hands?"

"No, really, I did it myself – I picked up a boiling cauldron in my Potions class.  It was an accident."

"Accident?  Why is young Master's teacher not preventing accidents?  Who is this teacher who is careless?"

For one moment he was sorely tempted to tell her it was Snape, and from the brief flash of unholy amusement on Sirius's face he was thinking the same thing.  But Harry could just imagine the chaos that would ensue if this very determined Nanny-elf went after a Hogwarts professor.  And he had little doubt that she would.

"It was an accident, Maffy," he told her.  "I did something stupid and hurt myself, that's all."

Maffy's expression softened at once and she began to scold him affectionately.  He was a very naughty boy, he had no business being careless at school and she should spank him for not obeying his teachers better.  He was to be a good boy at school in future and learn all his lessons or she would know the reason why ….  She finished up by deciding that he needed something to pep him up a little and she had just the remedy.  Harry encouraged her in this idea and Maffy bustled away self-importantly.

There was a collective sigh of relief when she was gone, but Dilly was distressed.

"The masters must not be offended by old Maffy.  Old Maffy has missed the young Master sorely since Master James and Mistress Lily took him away.  She was wishing to have gone with them but Master James would not hear of it, and when we was told Master James and the Mistress had died and the little Master was all alone – "

"It's all right, Dilly," Remus reassured her.  "We understand perfectly.  Maffy's just doing her job, trying to protect Harry."

"She's got pretty intimidating over the years," Sirius said.  "I don't remember her being like that when we were kids, although she had a lot to say when I knocked James off his broom when we were eight.  But it's different with Harry, I suppose."

"Seventeen years of frustrated maternal instinct," Remus said wryly.  "Besides - you were a child then, but you're an adult now and you're responsible for Harry.  She's bound to be critical."  He turned back to Harry.  "We're just making sure all the paperwork on our side's in order.  You go and have a look around, and take your time - we're not in any hurry."

Harry took him at his word, and for the next hour or so was occupied in looking over the house with Dilly.  It was a pleasant building, with a warm and welcoming air, beautifully furnished and full of polished wooden floors and panelling, woven hangings and rugs, and fascinating landscapes and portraits on the walls.  Dilly made a point of introducing Harry to his various ancestors in the portrait gallery, most of whom greeted him with grave nods and smiles although none of them seemed inclined to speak.  This came as no surprise to Harry, who had numerous photographs of his parents that had never spoken either.  One thing did seem strange to him.

"There aren't many Potter women here," he remarked, pausing next to a picture of an elegant couple in sixteenth century dress.  "These women are all wives …."

"Young Master should know that there have not been many Potter ladies born," Dilly explained solemnly.  "The last Potter mistress born is Mathilda Potter in eighteen twenty-eight, who is marrying Perseus Black."

Harry's brows went up.  "Is _that_ how I'm related to Sirius, then?"

"Oh no, master!  He is dying in a duel at their wedding feast and she would never marry no more.  Young master is related through Auriga Black who is marrying Raphael Potter, young Master's great-great-grandfather." 

Dilly hurried further up the long passage and indicated portrait in a heavy frame.  A couple in Regency-style wedding robes peered back at Harry interestedly and Harry had no trouble at all identifying the lady as a Black, although all the features that were familiar in Sirius and his cousins seemed bolder and more exotic in her.

"She looks … almost Spanish," Harry said, surprised, but Dilly beamed.

"Young Master is so clever!  The Mrs. Raphael Potter, Auriga Black that was, is having a Spanish mother!"

"Wow."  It occurred to Harry that perhaps this explained a lot about the Black family temperament, since his great-great-grandmother didn't look like a diffident lady by any means.

Maffy reappeared as Dilly was showing Harry the long, elegant ballroom and dining room, which took up most of one wing.  She had a steaming cup of potion for him, which Harry eyed with misgiving but thought it wise to accept, especially since he was pretty sure the elves would commit collective suicide rather than see him poisoned.  It tasted vile, but within minutes he had to admit that he felt more energetic and alert than he'd felt for several weeks.

Shortly after that, Dilly reluctantly excused herself to go and supervise the production of lunch for the three visitors, and Maffy decided to go with her, presumably to satisfy herself that none of the other elves were planning to feed Harry anything remotely dangerous.  Harry didn't mind in the slightest; he was keen to retrace his steps and look at some of the rooms and portraits again.

 

xXx

 

It was Sirius who eventually came to find him.  It hadn't been difficult; the sound of James's old gramophone turning out Pink Floyd's _The Wall_ led him to a suite of rooms he remembered only too well, and when he stood in the doorway for a minute or two, watching the familiar dark-haired youth sorting through records near the window, he felt as though twenty years had rolled back.  Only the clothes were different.

"I didn't know you were a Pink Floyd fan," he made himself say after a moment or two.

Harry glanced up at him.  "It's not bad, for old stuff."  He held up a couple of records.  "There are loads of wizard bands here.  I didn't know there were so many."

"Not so many these days; the industry has been more tightly regulated since the last war."  Sirius joined him, looking over the boy's shoulder as he examined each record.  "Moony says there's a lot of good stuff to be found in second-hand shops."

"There always is," Harry said, with a fleeting grin.  He uncovered another Muggle record.  "Huh - this one's by Queen.  He's dead now, you know."

"Who?"

"Freddie Mercury.  He died of AIDS a few years ago."

Sirius winced.  "I keep forgetting that I missed a lot of stuff while I was in Azkaban.  Christ!  Freddie Mercury dead ….  What about David Bowie?"

"He's still around."

"Well, that's something."

Harry slipped the record out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable instead of Pink Floyd.  Hearing the opening bars of _Procession_ was eerie after so many years.

"There's a cloak of yours on the window seat," the youth commented idly, watching the record spin.

"Yeah?"  Sirius picked it up.  There was no label in the neck.  "How do you know it's mine?"

Harry shrugged, the faint grin flickering across his lips again.  "It's too long for me, so I guessed it was probably too long for Dad too.  And there's a packet of fags in the pocket."

Sirius pulled them out; the faded logo of Mordred Lights, with the picture of a glinty-eyed wizard set in a lozenge-shaped frame, stared back at him. 

"I wonder how I managed to forget a pack of smokes?" he said idly, folding the cloak up and putting it back.  "Forgetting a cloak's one thing - leaving my smokes in James's room was asking to get them pinched."

"Did he smoke then?" Harry asked curiously.

"We all did.  James just like to pretend he didn't.  He quit completely when your mum agreed to go out with him, because she didn't like the smell."

"You don't smoke now, though."

"Lost the habit in prison. Besides, it's a pretty filthy hobby to have.  Expensive too."

Harry nodded vaguely, but went back to looking at the records.  Sirius wondered for a moment or two if the boy would, for once, ask more questions about his father, but as usual Harry showed no apparent interest.  Sirius wished, in frustration, that his godson would open up a little and give them a chance to talk to him about James without it developing into an unpleasant quarrel.  He had no idea where the teenager had got his information about his father from, but somehow he had got hold of details of some of the worst examples of the four Marauders' excesses and in typical teenaged fashion judged his father accordingly.  Being Harry, of course, his reaction was more extreme than anyone else's.

"The elves have served lunch in the garden room," Sirius said finally.  "Come on, we'd better go down or Maffy'll come looking for you."

 

xXx

 

Several of the elves wept when it was time for Harry and his godparents to leave, although they all seemed to gather strength from knowing that he'd be back - however briefly - on his birthday.  Maffy had the last word, as the three of them prepared to Apparate from the front entrance.

She tucked Harry's cloak around him firmly and combed his hair once more, before turning to Sirius.

"Mr. Black is taking good care of the young Master," she said sternly.  "Else Maffy is knowing the reason why."

"I'll do my best," Sirius assured her.

"Hm."  She was patently unimpressed by him, but let it go in favour of giving Harry last minute instructions not to catch cold or do anything dangerous and to be good.  She also slipped several substantial packages of biscuits and cakes into his pockets, to join the ones already put there by the kitchen elves.

"You were very patient with her," Remus remarked to Harry later, when Harry unwrapped all the food offerings in the kitchen at Black Manor and put them on plates for tea.

Harry hesitated, a little wary of responding to this.

"Wasn't Harry who had anything to worry about," Sirius retorted.  "It was _me_ she had her hooks into!"

"Why didn't you just say something?" Harry asked him.  "You didn't have to stand there and take it."

"You don't mess with a nurse-elf, Harry," Sirius told him dryly.  "Not where her nurseling's concerned, anyway.  She has a very important role - she's expected to protect the baby whatever happens, and elves can pack quite a magical punch when they're given licence to do so."

Harry gave him a disbelieving grin.  "You're winding me up, right?  Maffy wouldn't hurt a fly."

"There are historical accounts of nurse-elves killing people who attacked their charges," Remus said, and there was no humour in his voice.  "Not surprising, when you consider that in the old days it wasn't unheard of for wizards to try and murder a family's heir in the cradle to get their hands on a fortune."

Harry looked from one man to the other, wide-eyed.  "I'm not a baby anymore!"

"You're still a minor.  And Maffy was still fussing over James the morning he got married," Sirius said.  "I'm not taking the risk of winding her up - you saw how she got when she thought we weren't feeding you properly!"

"But …."  Harry frowned.  "If she was able to defend me like that - why didn't Mum and Dad take her into hiding with them?"

"In practical terms, it would have been a significant risk," Remus said.  "Godric's Hollow was a very small place even back then, with no prominent wizard families.  A house-elf coming and going would have caused comment.  And a powerful wizard, one who knew what he was doing, could track a house-elf down if he knew one was there."

"Besides, James was sentimental about her," Sirius said in a low voice, and he effectively ended the conversation by walking away. 

"But they were using the Fidelius Charm, so what would it matter?" Harry asked Remus cautiously when Sirius was gone.  "It's not like Voldemort could have found them, even if he knew where they were."

"He could have found the other families in Godric's Hollow though," Remus suggested mildly, and Harry fell silent.  "Do you think your father would have sat tight while Death Eaters tortured one family after another?  Do you think your mother would have?"

This question was a bit too close to home for his godson, he could tell.  The teenager backed away from it and shrugged. 

"He found them anyway, didn't he, so it doesn't make much difference."

 

xXx

 

"Sometimes I think dealing with Harry is a lot like some of those dormitory brawls we all used to have when we were kids," Remus observed quietly, after tea. 

He and Sirius were sitting in the small living room with the long windows standing open to let in the cooler evening air.  Harry was out in the garden; they could just see him from where they were sitting, he was sprawled out in the shaggy grass of the small lawn, reading a book.

"What, all flying fists and yelling?" Sirius said, with a reluctant grin.  "You must be having different conversations with Harry to me."

"I was thinking of those times when we'd all be in a funny mood and everything we said got taken the wrong way by one of us."  Remus nudged his partner gently.  "Especially the first term after you ran away from home.  You were always taking offence at something, and we never entirely knew what we said to set you off or why."

"I don't think _I_ knew half the time," Sirius replied.

"Exactly."

"Well, that's where we differ, because I think Harry knows exactly what the problem is - he just doesn't want to deal with it face to face."

"You can't make him talk about James if he doesn't want to, Padfoot."

"I'd like to get my hands on the clot who put all that crap about James in his head in the first place," Sirius said sharply.  "I'm not saying we were saints, Moony, but James wasn't a bully.  He was a better man than me, that's for sure."

"Harry has different standards to you and me," Remus said quietly.  "His definition of a bully might be somewhat different.  Besides, you have to know people to have an understanding of their character and regrettably he didn't know James.  There are incidents from when we were kids that an outsider wouldn't understand out of context.  Something Dumbledore told me last year makes me think that's where the problem is."

"Those Occlumency lessons with Snape, you mean?"

"Probably.  Dumbledore made him swear he wouldn't talk about James to Harry unless it was unavoidable, but that leaves a lot of wriggle room for a man like Severus."

"It'd be just like him to somehow show Harry bad stuff about James, but manage to leave out the things he got up to with his cronies," Sirius said contemptuously.

"I don't think seeing Severus behaving like a lout too would impress Harry much," Remus remarked.  "Somehow we need to show him that James had other sides to his character."

"Which brings us back to the original problem, because until he's prepared to listen we don't have a hope of making him understand."  Sirius sighed restlessly.  "How can someone his age and size be a magnet for so much grief?  You'd think having Voldemort after him would be enough, without all the rest."

Remus smiled in spite of himself.  "He's a nice kid, when he's not trying to convince everyone that he's tough."

Sirius suddenly snorted, good humour at least partially restored.  "Tough … until faced by eight adoring house-elves.  And what the hell was that about?  I'd have been ready to stake this house on him running a mile from old Maffy, but he stood there with a soppy grin on his face while she treated him like a naughty toddler!"

Remus chuckled.  "I liked the look on _your_ face better, when it looked like she might swat you for not taking proper care of him!"

Sirius gave him a dig in the ribs.  "Git!"

"It's intriguing but I don't think you have to look far for the cause.  He has no mother and the woman who raised him during his formative years treated him like …."  Remus paused, thinking, and some of his humour slipped away.  "Actually, Padfoot, I'd give a lot more to understand his reaction to your mother's portrait.  I was mostly ready for him trying to hex her - even Kingsley nearly hexed her the first time he heard her kick off - but I wasn't expecting Harry to panic the way he did.  He was _terrified_ , shaking like a leaf and heartbeat going nuts.  Then he said he thought it was Petunia and he wasn't lying, Padfoot, I could smell it.  He lies to us about the most insignificant things sometimes, but not that."

"She was always a shrew," Sirius said irritably.  "James seemed to think she was funny, but some of the things she used to say left a nasty taste in my mouth."

"I think James made an effort to think she was funny for Lily's sake."  Remus shifted slightly.  "I don't like the idea that she treated Harry the way your mother treated you."

"My mother only treated me like a freak when it became clear that I wouldn't toe the family line.  I'm willing to bet Petunia treated Harry like that from the beginning."  Sirius paused, then added grimly, "I talked to him about family a little at Easter.  He said Dursley only hit him a couple of times, but to be honest I'm not sure I believe that.  I get the impression he may have beaten Harry quite a few times before he went to Hogwarts and it became too unpredictable to risk touching him. "

Remus grimaced.  "If you want my opinion, I think it's more likely that Petunia beat Harry.  Dursley was a yes-man where she was concerned, and I got the impression that for all he was a small-minded bigot, he was fairly harmless as Muggles went.  Petunia was another matter.  There was something about the way she talked to Lily – and James – that was downright nasty."

There was a pause and suddenly Sirius leaned forward, elbows on knees, rubbing his face fretfully.

"God, what a household to leave the poor sprog in.  No wonder he's such a mess."

"Oh, I don't know … really he's quite stable, all things considered.  He could have been a sack of nerves and then where would we be?  He may be confused and difficult as hell to deal with, but at least his spirit hasn't been broken."

They watched him for a while.  Harry was sprawled on his stomach, one foot kicking idly in the air as he turned the pages of his book.  Then a dark speck appeared in the sky that resolved itself into a large owl.  It landed next to Harry and dropped something onto his book.

"Two guesses who that's from," Sirius said, good humour returning.

"It's a little fast for an owl from Egypt, isn't it?"

"Depends on how the letter got to England."

"Ah well," Remus said after a moment or two.  "You'll take Harry up to Hogwarts tomorrow?"

"Yep."  Sirius rubbed his face again.  "Leave him to Snivellus's tender mercies for a few days, at the end of which he'll probably be in a mood to murder you when you go up to take your turn."

"He'll be in a mood to murder me long before then," Remus said, amused.  "Father Marius is paying a visit in half an hour or so."

Sirius let out a bark of laughter.  "You're a masochist, Moony, I swear!"

 

xXx

 

The trouble with Father Marius, Harry was coming to realise, was that he was disarmingly likeable.  He was quite young for his calling (he'd already breached one wary barrier by cheerfully informing Harry that he'd been a Beater for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, a year or so behind his father and Sirius) and wasn't at all inclined to take offence at the teenager's unpredictable moods and provocative remarks.  He had a lively sense of humour - Harry definitely liked that about him - and didn't see the Confirmation classes as yet another opportunity to make Harry stare at a book for hours on end.  Today was a case in point; instead of theology, they were taking an amble through the garden.

"I can quite see why you might see Confirmation as a pointless exercise," the curate observed.  "But there are other valid reasons to go along with it anyway."

"Such as?" Harry asked moodily.

"Well, it's the wish of your godparents that you be confirmed, in line with your parents' wishes when they had you baptised in the first place."

"That's a good reason?"  Harry kicked a stone.  "I don't know how Remus still believes in God after everything that's happened to him."

"When you lose faith in mankind, God is still there."

"And where was God when the werewolf bit him and the Aurors treated him like a criminal just for being Sirius's friend?" Harry demanded.

"I think that's a question for Remus to ask, not you," Father Marius pointed out, not unkindly.  "Don't try and hide behind other people.  If you have an argument with God, it should be _your_ argument, not someone else's."

"Fine!  Where was God when this happened?"  Harry pushed his hair back to reveal his scar.

"You don't think the fact that you're alive answers that?"

"Talk to my mum and dad about it," Harry said acidly.  "Oh, wait - you can't!"

"They made a willing sacrifice," the priest said patiently.  "Don't dishonour their choices, Harry."  Harry walked on in stiff silence.  Father Marius persisted.  "It's perfectly understandable for you to be angry that their choices resulted in you losing them, but in their place would you have acted differently?"

But Harry didn't want to discuss that. 

"Sirius says Voldemort's an atheist," he said, changing the subject.

It took Father Marius a moment or two to mentally switch gears. 

"I'm not qualified to say one way or the other," he said eventually.  "I know he claims to be an atheist, but that's hardly the same thing."

"Well, that's Sirius's reason for me being Confirmed."

"You have to admit there's a strong case for minimising any accidental resemblance between the two of you."

"It's a bit late for that," Harry said.

"It's never too late, actually, but I won't argue with you.  What would you say Remus's reasons are?"

"He's part of the happy band of believers and thinks I'll go to hell if I don't."

"Run that one past me again, preferably without wilfully altering the text."

Harry sighed.  "He's concerned about my _spiritual welfare_."

"Thank you.  Not quite the same thing, is it?"

"You tell me."

"Fine.  It's not the same thing.  If he had such a fundamentalist outlook, he would never have given you the choice of joining the White Goddess Brethren."  Father Marius grinned at him amiably.  "Can I just add that you wouldn't get along with the High Priestess at all - she's much less receptive to criticism than I am and she's under no obligation to be forgiving."

Harry glowered.

Father Marius decided he could change the subject as well.  "Sirius told me that you saw your family home for the first time today."

Harry eyed him warily.  "Yeah." 

"I've heard of The Rose House, of course, but never been there.  What's it like?"

It took a little persistence but Harry was drawn into describing his family's house, including the paintings of his ancestors.

"They all look a bit like me really," he concluded.  "The blokes I mean.  There were hardly any Potter girls."

"It must be a bit odd for you, seeing all that when you've been brought up elsewhere."

Harry hesitated.  "I was born there, Sirius says."

"You were," Father Marius agreed.  "It's noted in the Register at Holy Bones."

"Had a house-elf who was my nurse and everything."

"That's often the way for children of the First Families.  Does it seem strange to you?"

Harry took his time answering.

"I reckon it might have been nice to grow up there."  The corner of his mouth twitched, not humorously.  "Anywhere would have been better than my aunt and uncle's house, though."

"Do your Muggle relatives go to church?"

Harry snorted.  "My aunt does, sometimes.  She makes my uncle and cousin go at Christmas."

"Did you go with them?"

"Nope.  She told the vicar and neighbours I was a hooligan."  He gave the priest a sideways look.  "It's a real tragedy that I couldn't go."

Father Marius grinned.  "I can tell you're cut up about it.  What about your cousin - is he Confirmed?"

"Doubt it."  Harry let out a snuffle of laughter.  "If you think I'm being difficult, you haven't met Dudley.  Getting out of stuff he doesn't want to do is his speciality."

"I don't think you're being difficult.  I think you're fighting your corner, which is a different thing."  Father Marius didn't give Harry time to react to this.  "So would you say your aunt's religious?"

"No, she goes because it makes her look good in front of the neighbours - "

"And what about your grandparents?"

Harry paused.  "My Muggle grandparents?"

"Yes.  Do you think they went to church?"

"No idea.  Aunt Petunia never talked about them and didn't like me asking questions."

"Your Potter grandparents were regular attendees at Holy Bones," the priest said.  "Your father too.  I met James at school, of course, although I don't claim to have known him well.  But I met your grandfather a couple of times.  He was kind enough to sponsor my first year of training as a priest."

"Why would he do that?" Harry asked, disconcerted.

Father Marius smiled.  "That's the kind of man he was.  My family aren't wealthy and having a son enter the priesthood is … well, it's effectively a lost income for the family, as the church only maintains us - we don't get paid to be priests.  Henry Potter was a good man."

"What's your point?" Harry asked, a little roughly.

Father Marius hesitated.  "If you'd been raised by your family, Harry, you would have gone to church as a matter of course and probably not thought anything of it.  Why do you think that is?"

Harry shrugged.  "Because it's what my family did?"

"Exactly.  Can I ask you a rude question?"

The teenager's mouth twitched.  "Go on then."

"Why are you still doing what your Muggle relatives do if you despise them so much?"

Silence.  Father Marius let it pass for several minutes as they walked slowly up the side of the big south garden.

Finally, he said, "If you say you don't believe in God, then I accept that.  But it isn't just about religion, Harry.  There are other reasons for doing as your godparents ask and accepting Confirmation into our church.  When you were a baby, every link you had to your parents and family, and to the society you were born into, was taken from you.  And since you were eleven years old you've been trying to re-establish those links, with mixed results.  You don't need to tell me how certain sections of our community see you, or how difficult it's been for you to become a wizard instead of a Muggle.  But by accepting Confirmation you not only send out a clear signal to our community that you accept our ways and traditions and want to be a part of them, but you also reach out across every generation of your family that came before you and make a pact with your ancestors, from your father and mother right back to the person who first bore your family name, that everything they were, everything they stood for and believed in, didn't die with your father."

They'd made it all the way back to the kitchen door.  The priest stopped there. 

"There's no Bible study today.  Think about things a little, will you?  I'll see you again soon enough and if, when I do, you still feel you can't accept Confirmation then that'll be the end of the matter."

Harry blinked.  "Seriously?"

Father Marius smiled faintly.  "Seriously.  We really don't force people to go to church if they don't want to!"


	2. Chapter 2

The following afternoon Sirius took Harry to Hogwarts, using a portkey provided by Professor Dumbledore.  Harry couldn't honestly say that he was all that keen to go, now that the moment had arrived, but there was nothing for it but to knuckle down – he had agreed to it after all.

"Besides, the it's the full moon tomorrow," Remus told him, as he helped Harry to empty his school things out of his trunk and re-pack it with things they thought he might need for this rather different set of lessons.  "Just as well if you're somewhere else while that's happening."

Harry looked at him unhappily, wanting to say that even if he was at the other end of the country, his mind would still be here at Black Manor.  Being almost seventeen made it very hard to express such thoughts, however, especially in someone who preferred to keep his feelings buried deep.

"If I pass my Potions NEWT," he said with some difficulty, "I can learn to make Wolfsbane …."

Remus interrupted him with a low chuckle which might have offended Harry if it hadn't been for the gentle hand suddenly gripping his neck, drawing him forward so that his godfather could rest his forehead against Harry's.

"Harry, you have so many things you need to concentrate on.  Forget the Wolfsbane, please?  It's not a big thing – it's not as though it can stop the transformation, after all.  It doesn't change who and what I am.  And you have far greater things to worry about."

"But it matters to me," Harry mumbled.

"And that means more to me that you can possibly know.  But I will be _fine_ , as I always am.  I'll be up to join you in a week."  Remus closed the lid of the trunk with a decisive _thunk_ and snapped the catches closed.  "I should think a week will pass in no time at all, considering everything Dumbledore has planned for you."

There was a tiny sound, and when they looked around Sirius was standing in the doorway.  He gave them a small smile.

"Time to go," he said.

The scene was weirdly repeated when the two of them reached Hogwarts.  Professor Flitwick was waiting for them when they arrived and showed Harry to a suite of guest rooms not far from Professor Dumbledore's own private quarters.  It was far larger than Harry himself would need, so presumably one or both of his godparents would be staying with him at some point, if not someone else; but for the time being he was on his own.

Sirius helped him to unpack his trunk and Harry, feeling oddly vulnerable, did not protest the unusual level of fussing.

"I'll be back as soon as Moony's recovered from the change," he told Harry, when this was done.  "You'll be okay until then." 

It was less a statement than a question and Harry wondered why the three of them were uneasy about this brief separation.  There was never this level of concern when he started a new school term.  On the other hand, as Dumbledore had pointed out at the Order meeting only the other evening, this was in no way the same thing.  Harry was not supposed to be here at Hogwarts during the summer break and was most certainly not supposed to be receiving extra lessons in Defence or anything else; if the Ministry found out about this, there would probably be hell to pay in more ways than one.

"If you've forgotten anything, send Hedwig and I'll bring it up with me," Sirius said finally.  He rubbed his hands on the seat of his jeans in an anxious gesture.  "You'll be okay?"

Harry dragged a grin onto his face.  "Yeah, of course."

He was ashamed to admit even to himself that he didn't want Sirius to leave him.

Sirius managed a grin too.  "I can always nip over to your grandparents' place and get Maffy to come up here and keep an eye on you."

Some of Harry's tension drained away, to be replaced by amusement and indignation.  "I'm not a fussy toddler!  I can look after myself."

"I think she'd have something to say about that."  But Sirius put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him.  "You'll do.  And I'd better be going."

Professor Flitwick was waiting at the entrance to the Great Hall when Harry returned from seeing Sirius off.  He beamed and patted the teenager's arm in an encouraging way.

"Well, Mr. Potter, shall we get started?"

 

xXx

 

"An important first step is to understand the flow of power from yourself to the object you are trying to animate and developing the ability to make that flow of power conform to your wishes even after you have severed the connection."

Harry had a little trouble with that concept.  "Severed the connection, sir?"

Professor Flitwick nodded enthusiastically.  "Permanent animations, Mr. Potter, require severance of the connection between the Animator and the object.  It would hardly be convenient for the wizard to spend his life making a suit of armour walk about the castle, would it?"  He wrinkled his nose humorously at Harry, and Harry had to grin back at him.  "The wizard puts a little of his power into the object so that the animation can continue indefinitely.  Needless to say, success depends upon the development of fine control and, it must be said, the extent of personal power an Animator possesses.  To that end, Mr. Potter, you will need to become very familiar with the limits of your own power."

At this, Harry felt a touch of unease.  "How do I do that, Professor?"

"It differs from wizard to wizard, but generally speaking one measures one's power by optimum performance of the most challenging magical discipline one knows against the length of time one may successfully sustain it without undue fatigue.  Given that you are still young and growing, you may expect your power limit to continue increasing for a few years yet, so your results will be probably unpredictable."

"The most challenging discipline I know is Occlumency," Harry pointed out.

Professor Flitwick considered this.  "Occlumency is probably not the best discipline in this case," he admitted.  "It is less of an exertion of pure magical energy and more a discipline of the mind.  Of your current skills, perhaps the best for this purpose would be sustaining the Patronus Charm.  You will have noticed that when you first attempted the charm, your ability to maintain it lasted no more than a few seconds.  This is usual with a novice.  Over time, as your strength and confidence in the charm grew, you would have been able to maintain it for longer and longer periods.  The Patronus requires sustained exertion of magical power combined with the will to maintain it corporeally.  You will find this a useful yardstick.

"Now, regarding the control of power.  Like all Animators, you will undoubtedly have used your gift for small animations in the past, perhaps spontaneously, without use of your wand, correct?"

"I made a teddy bear move when I was six or seven," Harry said, and the Professor nodded.

"Quite.  A common animation for a child.  Perhaps you don't remember, Mr. Potter, but in all likelihood you would also have noticed a sudden feeling of lassitude afterwards.  As you know, many small magics can be performed without a wand, but generally speaking this is inadvisable as it drains the body's personal resources.  The wand amplifies our personal flow of power and assists in refining control.  This, like all magic, needs to be taught and quite often some little bad habits need to be eradicated in the process.  The temptation for all Animators is to take the route of least resistance and simply _tell_ an object to move.  This is inefficient and inaccurate, and results in poor animations and unnecessary wastage of power.  The true Animator studies the object he or she desires to animate until an understanding of its construction is achieved.  One can then animate it fluidly and efficiently _thus -_ " 

And Professor Flitwick gently tapped a large and unwieldy-seeming mechanical spider that stood on the desk between them, bringing it to life.  With surprising fluidity for something that looked as though it had been assembled from a box of Muggle Mechano pieces, it gathered itself, drawing its leg joints beneath it and supporting the weightier body neatly. There was a pause.  One foreleg wavered in the air.  And suddenly it scurried across the table in a rattle of metal toes.

Harry was interested.  "The same principle applies to Transfiguration, doesn't it?  You _can_ just force something to change shape, but it's better if you have an understanding of how it's constructed first, especially if you're changing it from animate to inanimate or the other way round."

Professor Flitwick beamed.  "Exactly!  You'll discover, Mr. Potter, that a great many magical disciplines rely on this kind of in-depth technical knowledge, in the same way that one may follow a potion recipe with reasonable accuracy, whilst true potion brewing requires an understanding of the properties of one's ingredients.  Now - shall we try a little practical work?"

 

xXx

 

Dinner was served in Professor Dumbledore's private rooms.  The Headmaster himself ate lightly, but the helpings were ample enough to satisfy not only an ordinary teenaged boy's appetite but also the unusual hunger that gripped Harry in the wake of an unexpectedly strenuous lesson. 

Harry unabashedly enjoyed the cold meats, new potatoes, fresh peas and baby carrots, followed by a trifle made with summer fruits.  His childhood had taught him to eat whatever was put in front of him without arguments and on the understanding that if anything was left he would get half rations for the next two days.  He was a notably unfussy eater as a result (even compared to Remus, who had lived on a shoestring for much of his life, and Sirius, who had survived on meagre prison fare for twelve years) but that didn't mean he couldn't heartily enjoy a good meal that was presented with no strings attached.

Dumbledore observed this with an appreciative twinkle in his eye and gently encouraged the boy to talk about his first Animation lesson between courses.  They discussed the importance of understanding the flow of power, assessing one's own magical strength and the uses this could be put to, and - somewhere along the line - the theory behind wordless spellcasting, which Professor Dumbledore told Harry would be an important skill to add to his defensive repertoire.

After the meal they took a slow walk around the school gardens.  The light was just barely beginning to fade, but Harry was tense as he remembered that it was the night before the Full Moon.  Remus was always restless and short-tempered on these evenings, however hard he tried to maintain his usual appearance of polite urbanity.

The Wolfsbane Potion would curb this reaction to the tug of the waxing moon, allowing him to sleep more easily and go about his business like any rational man.

"Why does Professor Snape still refuse to make the Wolfsbane Potion for Remus?" Harry asked Professor Dumbledore abruptly.

The Headmaster sighed very faintly.  "A clash of personalities, dear boy, which no man may reason with, try as he might.  You will discover in time that there are few creatures so stubborn or unreasonable as those who refuse to see sense."

"Remus isn't unreasonable," Harry said.

Professor Dumbledore smiled.  "You think not?"

"I've never known him be unreasonable."

"And yet he wants one thing that he knows full well may never be granted."

"To not be a werewolf?" Harry asked, confused.  "What's unreasonable about that?"

"No, not that - although that is as good an example as any.  There is no cure, and you may rest assured that many great and benevolent minds have exercised themselves over the affliction down the centuries.  And yet in his heart of hearts Remus wants that, as every werewolf wants it.  Perhaps 'unreasonable' is a harsh word, though.  What sane man in their position would _not_ want a cure?"

"So what does he want that's so unreasonable?"

"Forgiveness," Dumbledore said, with a faint smile.  "Not for himself.  He wants Sirius and Severus to forgive each other and cease their squabbling, but as your father once noted, the sun will probably rise in the west first."

"And that's why Professor Snape won't make him the Wolfsbane?"

"No, Professor Snape will not make the Wolfsbane Potion because that would oblige Sirius, and obliging Sirius goes bitterly against the grain with him.  In so doing, he plays into Sirius's hands by punishing Sirius's lover and thereby giving Sirius the moral high ground and another reason for taking offence.  And while there might have been a time when Remus would have humbled himself and begged Severus for the potion anyway, those days are gone.  He is embittered enough with his lot in life that he won't bend his pride for Severus any longer, and in any case he will not give Severus another reason to pick quarrels with Sirius."  Professor Dumbledore looked sidewise at Harry.  "You see the circular nature of this situation, Harry?"

"And this is all because of that prank Sirius pulled on Professor Snape when they were kids," Harry stated sourly.

"Not at all.  There was a great deal more than the prank behind all of this.  Much bitterness and family rivalry and foolishness on all sides.  But only an old man like myself, with the benefit of decades of experience behind me, and, perhaps, a young, clear-headed man like yourself, can see how very sad and trivial and pointless it all is."

They were quiet for a while.

Finally, Harry said calmly, "I can see why he hated my dad."

"Yes?"

"Being rescued from a werewolf is good.  But being rescued from a werewolf by someone who takes the pi - the mick out of you is bad.  I mean, being alive is a bit of a pain if you've got to listen to your rescuer needling you about it for the next two years."

"Do you think your father did that?" Dumbledore asked him curiously.

Harry thought of his cousin Dudley.  Then he thought of the things he'd seen in Snape's Pensieve eighteen months previously.

"Yeah," he said dryly.  "I reckon he probably did."

"You are a harsh critic, Harry," the Headmaster remarked.

Harry shrugged cynically.  "Life's hard."

"Indeed."

They continued walking.  It was going to be a hot summer, Harry thought; the grass was already wilting and the earth drying out between the shrubs in the borders.

At length Dumbledore said, "Tomorrow I will ensure that you have free rein in the school libraries.  You will be starting your final year at school in September in any case, but there are still a few areas restricted from students.  Such restrictions have no relevance in your case, Harry, and there is much material you will need access to which your fellow pupils will not.  I trust you not to abuse the privilege."

"Thank you, sir."  Harry was surprised but pleased. 

"And Professor Flitwick has acquainted you with his own reference library?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good.  I know he is anxious that you should become acquainted with the legal restrictions of  Animation.  That will form an important part of your studies over the coming weeks."

"Remus told me that it's not a Dark Art, Professor," Harry said warily.  "That's true, isn't it?"

"Oh, quite so!" Dumbledore assured him.  "Like so many disciplines it can have some less reputable applications, though, and as Animation has become a rarer and more academic subject over the last couple of centuries, restrictions have been applied with some heavy-handedness to curb the tendency to experiment.  Sirius has undoubtedly mentioned his parents to you in this context."

"Yes … he sort of hinted that his mother practised necromancy too," Harry admitted.

"Only Sirius can say with any certainty if she did," the Headmaster commented.  "Let us say that while such a hobby would not be entirely unexpected of the late Mrs. Black, one would still hope that she refrained.  Necromancy is one of Darkest of the magical arts, forbidden by every magical authority across Europe and beyond."

"But what does it involve?" Harry asked uneasily.

"It covers a broad canvas," Dumbledore said sombrely.  "The holding of séances and the use of devices such as ouija boards are regulated under the same legislation that restricts necromancy.  No credible seer will use them, although such are not expressly forbidden.  The use of certain auguries such as the reading of entrails are permitted, as are the most minor of blood magics - provided of course that the blood is given voluntarily and used only for proper purposes, carefully controlled and adhering to strictly laid down procedures.  Tampering with the dead, magical or Muggle, is forbidden, as is summoning the dead.  The ritual used by Peter Pettigrew to raise Lord Voldemort was an ancient and dreadful form of necromancy, Harry.  It is forbidden to use the bones of the dead in potions, forbidden to use the blood of an unwilling participant to the ritual, and forbidden to give flesh to an incorporeal spirit.  Much violence was done to our laws that night and we have not yet seen the full extent of the consequences."

"Lord Voldemort aside, though," Harry said, "why would anyone want to raise the dead anyway?"

"Ah!  That is another matter entirely.  Would you not wish to speak with your parents if you could?"

"I suppose so," he replied doubtfully.  "But I wouldn't want to bring them back from - from wherever they've gone.  Not just so I could talk to them."

Dumbledore looked at him over the top of his glasses.  "Not even if they had died leaving a large inheritance and no Will, to be disputed between several heirs?"

Harry looked at him as if he was mad.  "That's what the courts are for!"

"There have been such cases in our history, and where the lawyers involved in the cases have been the ones to try to raise the deceased relative.  And then there are the tragic souls who do not have your distance from their dead loved ones and who cannot let them go so easily.  They are quite literally driven mad by grief."

"That's stupid.  People die every day and it's horrible, but you just have to get on with things."

"Your perspective is rather different than most, Harry.  You do not expect cushioning from life's horrors.  To those fortunate ones who lead simpler lives, death can be a difficult thing to accept.  There are no certainties, no guarantees, other than that there _must_ be more beyond it.  People fear the unknown."

Harry thought about the many complications of his life and snorted gently.  "I've got enough on my plate with the stuff I know about.  The rest can take care of itself."

Dumbledore observed the teenager for a moment or two, then smiled. 

"Just so!"

 

xXx

 

 

"You missed.  Again, Mr. Potter.  And bear in mind that if you're to have a hope of winning a duel against a Death Eater, you'll need to develop eyes in the back of your head."

Harry would have glared at Kingsley Shacklebolt, but he didn't have the energy.  It was hot, he was tired from repeating the same drill over and over, and his mind wanted to focus on anything except duelling.  It hadn't occurred to him when he'd agreed to this arrangement that the more interesting part of his extracurricular lessons would be the book work.

"Death Eaters are just people like the rest of us," he grumbled, as he returned to his starting place.

"Not a popular opinion with the general populace," Shacklebolt retorted.  "Nor among my fellow Aurors."

"Unlike the rest of us, they tend not to play fair," Sirius added.  "You _might_ get lucky and face off in a real duel against someone like Lucius Malfoy, but most Death Eaters are more focussed on winning rather than scoring points on style.  They hedge their bets – heavily."

"Then why bother drilling me in duelling etiquette at all?"

"Because you need it to impress people on your own side," Remus said, and he collected a frown from Shacklebolt. 

The Order line was that Harry needed the etiquette to score status points against the pureblood followers of Voldemort who made capital of his half-blood status.  Sirius and Remus were more honest with him; it was the purebloods on their own side they were concerned about, not Voldemort's followers who would probably be unimpressed by propaganda about Harry.  It was necessary to convince certain factions within the Order that they weren't training up a young assassin in their midst who would turn on them as easily as on Voldemort.

Harry didn't take very kindly to this, but he submitted to the training that he had, after all, agreed to.

"Again," Shacklebolt repeated, and the three men retreated back to their starting positions around the darkened garden, pulling dark cloaks around them and masks over their faces.

The costume element was quite deliberate.  Death Eater gatherings and operations were typically carried out in this garb and Harry needed to accustom himself to the psychological element of facing off against the masked and heavily cloaked figures.

"Odd as it might seem, this is another part of the pureblood manifesto," Sirius had told Harry when they first introduced the costumes to his training.  He held up the smooth, moulded black mask to his face briefly.  "The lackeys and foot-soldiers in Voldemort's ranks wear cloth masks, but the big boys – Rosier, Lestrange, Nott and so on – will wear masks like this.  It emphasises their rank as purebloods of the First Families, because until relatively recently no pureblooded witch or wizard of high status went out among the general populace bare-faced.  My own father would never have dreamt of it and some of the elderly members of the First Families still insist on wearing masks when they go out.  I met your great-grandfather once, when I was a very little boy – we were in Diagon Alley, I think, and I remember him bending down to speak to me and taking his mask off briefly as he did so."

Harry was astonished and fascinated.  "But why bother?"

Sirius shrugged.  "It was the custom – I've no idea when it started.  It's a deliberate distancing technique, designed to keep those of us at the top of the social tree from having meaningful contact with our inferiors."  He turned the mask over in his hands, grimacing.  "You need to know these things, because at some point you'll undoubtedly be introduced to a very elderly pureblood witch or wizard who won't remove their mask on first acquaintance.  And of course, Voldemort's very fond of this sort of pageantry, it plays into his notions of wizard rank and social class."

"So it was just purebloods who did it?"

"Not even all purebloods," Remus broke in at this point.  "Proper masks were _only_ worn by the First Families.  Purebloods of my social level might wear scarves across their lower faces when they were out and about on business.  The rank and file didn't bother unless they were being pretentious."

Harry's face screwed up for a moment.  "Sounds bloody poncy to me."

"Exactly what I said, when my grandfather tetchily declared that he didn't know what young people of good blood were coming to, dressing like Muggles and going out with their faces on display to any scum in the street," Sirius said.  He smiled.  "He gave me a bloody good caning for talking back, too.  I had more respect for him after that – people were always threatening to give me a good thrashing and never following through with it.  At least he was as good as his word.  My father was a slippery swine, but I always knew where I stood with Grandpapa, wicked old sod that he was."

It occurred to Harry now that he probably would have appreciated that too.  He didn't particularly care what people were like, so long as he knew where he stood with them. 

That was his problem with Kingsley Shacklebolt.  Harry had a tricky relationship with the man, mostly because he couldn't tell what the Auror thought of him.  He rather thought that Shacklebolt was waiting for something from him – what, he didn't know – and because he wasn't getting whatever it was, he was remaining aloof and wary.  That in turn made Harry very wary of him and because he found it difficult, if not impossible, to make the first move in initiating friendly overtures, he had no real way of discovering what the Auror's problem was.  The situation seemed likely to continue indefinitely.

His relationship with Professor Flitwick was better, though, and helped by Harry's enthusiasm for learning Animation.  Like many teachers, Flitwick taught better when he had only one or two pupils anyway, but as a Master Animator he had been doomed to a lack of talented pupils in a subject he loved.  To have Harry to teach and ample time to do so was a rich opportunity for the Charms Professor. 

"It's really interesting," Harry said the following day, when he was sitting with Sirius on the stretch of grass leading down to the edge of the lake.  It was an area that always seemed small and crowded during the school year, but looked enormous with just the two of them there.  "There's a lot of stuff I reckon's just physics, like they teach in Muggle schools.  You know, how things are put together and how they work.  I mean, it's all very well being able to go _move_ – " he touched a quill with his finger and it began to wriggle awkwardly through the grass, "but it works better if you know how it's put together and move it the best way it's able to move.  It's a feather, but it won't fly even if I tell it to.  But if it's two leaves stuck together …."

"That kind of thing, at least, I can help you with since the same principles are at work in Transfiguration," Sirius remarked.  "There's a lot of overlap between Charms, Transfiguration and Animation."

"Hm," Harry murmured, only half listening to his godfather.  Most of his attention was on a book Professor Flitwick had lent him.  "Professor Flitwick only lets me move small things and raised images."  He looked half-indignant, half-intrigued for a moment.  "We're making toys, puppets and stuff, so I can see how the joints work.  But he has this enormous musical box with carved animals around the sides.  Making those move is cool."

"I can imagine," Sirius said dryly and he reached out, firmly closing the cover of the book, "but we're supposed to be looking at turning you into an Animagus right now.  Unless you'd rather not bother, in which case – "

"I'm listening!" Harry said hastily.

"Good.  So, did you review your Transfiguration notes on the problems in changing one animal into another?"

"Yep."

"What about Professor McGonagall's treatise on transfer of higher consciousness between forms?"

"I read it," Harry said doubtfully, "but I didn't really get it.  How can a human brain fit inside a – a rat, for example?"

Sirius squashed the urge to reply that the human brain in question had been very small to start with.  That had been one of the mistakes he'd made with Peter Pettigrew in the first place. 

"It's not about the brain size – many creatures don't make use of the entire brain capacity anyway – but about the _mind_ , which is a different thing.  It's about consciousness and rationality and the ability to retain your human intelligence and sense of self when you change shape.  How well you do that determines how successful your changes are and if you fail to take enough of yourself with you when you change, you can be overwhelmed by your animal self and be incapable of human control.  Worse, you might not be able to change back.  That's why no one should ever attempt the Animagus transformation without a partner who can reverse it."  Sirius smiled a little bitterly.  "Wormtail had a lot of problems in that area – he didn't have much difficulty in changing, because that's not the really tough part, but he did have trouble retaining enough comprehension of his magical abilities to reverse transform.  The funny thing is that it was James and me who had the biggest problems in coping with the animal instincts and keeping a grip on who we were.  The first full moon we spent with Moony was a killer – by the time dawn rolled around, I managed to transform back but it was nearly an hour before I was able to walk on two feet again, which shook me up a bit.  But Wormtail … he didn't seem to be too bothered by the after-effects, which might explain how he was able to stay in rat form for twelve years."

"Maybe," Harry agreed.  "But why did he turn into a rat anyway?"

"You don't get to choose your form when you change – it's something to do with personality and you have no control over it whatsoever.  Other than to choose _not_ to change, of course."

"Oh."  Harry's face fell.  "Isn't that a bit risky?"

Sirius grinned at him.  "Which part of _very dangerous magic_ did you not get when McGonagall was giving her lecture on the subject?"

"But what happens if you turn into a – a giraffe or something?"

"Do you feel you have a giraffe personality?"

"No!"  Harry sat up, pulling his knees up to his chest.  "But maybe …."

"Maybe what?"

"What if I turn into a snake?" the teenager said in a rush.

Sirius stared at him.  "Why do you think you would?"

"I'm a Parselmouth!  And, you know, Lord Voldemort's less evil twin and all that."

That bothered Sirius, but he hoped Harry didn't realise it. 

"Do you dream about being a snake?" he asked after a moment, and was pleased that his voice remained calm and reasonable.

"I did when he rummaged around in my head that time," Harry muttered.

"I'm not talking about the times he's has messed with you.  I'm talking about the rest of the time, when you dream normally.  Do you have dreams of being a snake?"  Sirius sat up too.  "If you tried to imagine what it would be like to be a snake, would you have any problem doing it?  Could you imagine how a snake thinks and feels?"

Harry looked unhappy.  "Well … maybe.  But I know a bit about how snakes think because I can talk to them."

Sirius thought about this for a moment or two, then said in a milder tone, "When was the first time you spoke to a snake?"

Harry snorted in momentary amusement.  "Dudley's eleventh birthday party.  We went to the zoo."

"When I was a kid, my Uncle Alphard had a dog, a basset hound called Harriet," Sirius told him.  "I must have been about seven or eight … it was well before the family disowned him.  Anyway, Harriet had the most amazingly acute sense of smell.  I used to watch her tracking people around Alphard's house and garden and sniffing out biscuit crumbs Regulus left under the couch.  We used to play a kind of hide-and-seek, getting her to sniff a robe and find the person, and I used to think it was so brilliant that she could do that."  He shrugged a little.  "More than once I dreamed I was a dog, racing along beside her and smelling all these incredible smells."

"And now you can do that," Harry said, fascinated.

"And now I can do _exactly_ that.  Although we always laughed ourselves into stitches that my dog form was a bit of a mutt when I was a pureblood wizard," Sirius added, amused.

Harry thought about that for a while.

"I used to dream I could fly," he said at length.  "Sometimes I would dream that if I could just get to a window and jump out ….   When Hagrid gave me Hedwig, I watched her flying in and out of my bedroom window.It was just like in my dreams."




"Maybe you'll be an owl then," Sirius encouraged him.  "That'd be a useful form to have."

"Do Animagi turn into birds much?" the teenager asked doubtfully.

"When I went to register myself just after my trial, there was one person on the list who could turn into a rook.  There was even a witch who turned into a spider, but I don't see how much use that would be."

"Pretty good for not getting noticed, maybe," Harry said, interested.  "And you could walk on the ceiling or through cracks in the floorboards.  Besides, being able to spin webs must be good for something."

Sirius barked a laugh and that was it – they were off, trying to think up weird Animagus forms.

"Being a fish could be a bit of a problem, if you're nowhere near water."

"And swimming in a stream would be really risky.  There're otters and herons and fat blokes with fishing rods, like Uncle Vernon …."

"Being an otter might not be so bad though.  Or a seal."

"That's okay if you live near the sea, although there's still fishing trawlers with nets."

"You might not want to be a dolphin either then.  And I can't see much use for being a blue whale.  Being a land-bound mammal's probably handier.  Are you _sure_ you don't feel like a giraffe?"

"What good would that be in England?  Unless I wanted to peer through people's bedroom windows, and I could do that from a broomstick."

"Tell me more about your kinky voyeur side."

Harry thumped him gently.  "Shurrup, Sirius!"

Sirius chuckled.  "Well, there are loads of other animals.  Rabbits, for instance.  You can dig, hop and have long-range hearing."

"And breed," Harry suggested blandly.

"Rabbit sex … hmmm!"

"Ugh!  What about foxes?"

"You'd run the risk of getting chased by the nearest hunt.  Weasels and stoats are canny little predators.  Or badgers."  Sirius suddenly waxed enthusiastic.  "What about being a bat?  Night vision!"

"And you could fly _and_ hang upside down from the ceiling …."

"Snape probably does that already."

Harry sniggered.  "Being a hedgehog wouldn't be much use, or a mole.  Well … not unless you want to dig a lot."

"Hedgehogs and moles are short-sighted.  Mice are too much like rats for my liking.  What about domestic animals, though?  Not guinea pigs or budgies – dogs and cats.  Horses even.  Being a horse might be something, even if it _is_ a bit big to get into the living room.  Think of being able to gallop."

"I s'pose Dad could do that."

Sirius tried not to react to this unexpected remark.  "Yes, but I think it's a different kind of movement for a stag.  They have lighter bodies, different hooves ….  He said the antlers were the difficult bit.  They looked really dramatic, especially when he got older, but he had to be careful how he moved when we were in the Forbidden Forest."

"Why a stag though?" Harry asked.

"I don't really know," Sirius replied quietly.  "Like I said, it's partly a personality thing, although that's nowhere near the whole explanation."

"Snape said he was arrogant," Harry said, after a pause.

How to answer that?

"We were all arrogant, Harry.  Too bloody clever for our own good and thought it made us invincible ….  Besides, _Snape_ was arrogant if it comes to that.  He still is.  He sucked up to cousin Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy, and hung around with the likes of Evan Rosier, Botolphus Pucey and my brother.  Such a nice bunch of people," Sirius said bitterly.  "Really inspiring examples of humanity, some of them.  But he brushes that quietly under the carpet, doesn't he?"

"Still, he had reasons not to like you all, didn't he?" Harry said in a bland tone.

"Yeah.  And we had reasons not to like him and his friends – "

A shadow fell over them.

"Nice to see the pair of you working hard," Remus Lupin remarked, cheerfully oblivious to the conversation he had just interrupted.  "If you're finished here, Harry, I believe Kingsley's ready to have another crack at you."

Harry scrambled to his feet, scooping up his book and brushing dry grass off his jeans.

"Yeah, I'm finished," he said, without waiting for Sirius's reaction, and he set off back to the castle.

"Bugger," Sirius muttered, watching his retreating back.

 

xXx

 

 

Dumbledore insisted that however busy Harry's days might be, he should also have sufficient free time to unwind from the pressure of the extracurricular lessons and "be a teenager".  Not everyone agreed with this (Professor Snape in particular considered it to be coddling him at a time when they couldn't afford the luxury of doing so) but the headmaster was no fool.  Harry had agreed to these extra lessons and would undoubtedly keep his word, because that was his way, but the battle his guardians and assorted well-wishers waged wouldn't stop when the summer was over.  He was almost seventeen and so far he hadn't given his word that he would return to Hogwarts when the holiday ended.

So Harry got time to fly his broom around the school grounds, occasionally tossing a Quaffle around if one of the Order members in attendance was interested in playing with him, and to read and laze about.  In practice, he chose to spend quite a bit of his spare time rummaging in the libraries (Dumbledore had given him free rein in the main school library - Restricted Section included - and Professor Flitwick had introduced him to his private library, containing a wealth of Charms and Animation texts that were unavailable elsewhere) and reading up on his new and intriguing subject.

One of Professor Flitwick's biggest concerns was that Harry should fully acquaint himself with the international laws surrounding Animation.  As Remus had told him at Easter, the subject wasn't considered a Dark Art, but there was no denying that there were aspects of its application that were very Dark and the list of prohibitions attached to it was consequently a long one.

 _The practitioner,_ one of the textbooks read, _shall take note that the following Animations are utterly proscribed under international wizarding statutes: Animation of the following diverse items, namely;_

 _The mortal remains of deceased wizards or witches;_

 _The mortal remains of deceased Muggles, whether male or female, or those wizard-born commonly known to our kind  as 'squibs';_

 _The recumbent forms of those wizards, witches, Muggles or 'squibs' who are rendered Petrified, comatose, Stunned or otherwise insensible;_

 _The mortal remains of land-dwelling beasts or birds, whether magical or unmagical, and certain creatures of the deep water (see Annexe 52(b)(ii));_

 _Certain artifices and creations commonly known to our kind as 'golems' (see Annexe 89(a)(xxiv)) -_

" - And so on and so forth," Harry mumbled to himself, skimming the pages in dismay.  It rather begged the question of what legal uses Animation _could_ be put to, especially when it became clear that there were also limits on the kind of Animations that could be permanent.  The guiding rule seemed to be that short-term Animations were preferable in most cases.  Although according to Professor Flitwick, one had to be an unusually talented Animator to create something long-lasting in any case.

Sirius had said that his father regularly Animated anything from carvings on the furniture to suits of armour and that these were minor manifestations of his talent.  There had been more than a hint that Gaius Black had taken his experimental projects well beyond the bounds Professor Flitwick would consider acceptable and worse, there had been a suggestion that his wife practised Necromancy (which Harry had never needed to be told was a Dark Art with no redeeming qualities whatsoever). 

"They must have been breaking the law left, right and centre," Harry muttered. 

He closed the book and pushed it aside, but not before he'd carefully marked his page with Ron's latest postcard.  Then he picked up one of the little card and string puppets Professor Flitwick had suggested he make - this one was a dragon and the joints were as accurate as he could make them, based on a book he'd found in the library - and set about stringing it together.  Harry was having an inordinate amount of fun creating these; his dragon had fully articulated wings, carefully outlined scales across the body and a little puff of smoke and flame snorting out of its nostrils.  It reminded him of the dragon he'd fought in his fourth year.  His little wizard image had been copied from some of the illustrations in _The Standard Book Of Spells_ and the witch he based on a picture he'd found in an hilarious volume that collated several centuries of wizard fashion plates.  The Quidditch players were more complicated and he hadn't yet worked out what to do about the Quaffle, Snitch and Bludgers, but he was particularly proud of his centaur and phoenix, and the basilisk had a long segmented body to mimic the flowing movement Harry remembered from his encounter.  His next project would be an Acromantula, although he didn't think Ron would appreciate that one much when he saw it.

Ron was apparently having the time of his life in Egypt, which came as no surprise to Harry and really he didn't grudge him the experience at all, but it did make him feel a bit down when the postcards arrived.  He was used to feeling isolated and at a loss during the summer holiday, but this was the first time he'd had someone else writing to tell him about what they were doing.  For all that he was enjoying the Animation lessons and interested in the rest, it didn't stand up to Ron's tantalising hints of tombs, curses and eastern markets.  And none of it would have compared to Ron's actual company.

There was no point in dwelling on it, though.  Harry finished tying the last little claw onto the dragon's foot and spread the puppet out so that none of the strings would tangle together.  Then he gave it a poke with his wand and willed it to move.

And limb by limb the dragon sat up.  Wings twitched and spread, lifting the articulated body, and legs drew themselves up underneath it.  Its tail swung out, the legs straightened, talons flexing, and it gave a couple of clumsy flaps of its wings before springing into the air like a leaping cat.

Harry grinned.

He gave the Quidditch players a prod next, watching in amusement as they wobbled into the air on their broomsticks - "Better watch out for the dragon, lads," he murmured - then tapped the centaur, phoenix, witch, wizard and basilisk.

The basilisk opened its hinged jaw in a silent croak and began to chase after the witch, who was rather hampered in her escape by spindle-heeled button boots and a wobbling bustle.  The centaur reared and gave chase.  Maybe an Acromantula as well would be a bit much, although it might give the wizard something better to do than run in circles, watching the phoenix flying above his head ….  Someone chuckled; Harry lost control of the dragon and Quidditch players and they collapsed in an untidy heap of paper and strings in the middle of the table.

"Sorry!" Remus said, but he was grinning as he strolled over to the table and gave the struggling witch a gentle poke with his finger.  Her bustle swung from side to side and she nearly fell over.  He laughed.  "Fantastic!  Now I know why Sirius asked me to buy you a box of craft materials from Scribbulus Inks.  Are you going to build a theatre for them?"

"Dunno," Harry admitted.  "Could do, I s'pose."

He released the remaining puppets and began to sort out tangled strings, carefully laying each one in a wooden tray so that none of the cardboard limbs were bent. 

Remus put a box on the table.  "More cardboard, string, paper, glue, and some other bits and pieces Sirius thought you might like.  There's a parcel of balsa wood and some craft knives - I had to go to a Muggle store for those, most magical folk not being hobbyists of that kind.  He asked me to get you some lengths of light silk as well, is that right?  I wasn't sure exactly what you had in mind, so there's an mixture of lengths and patterns from Madam Malkin's oddments bin."

"Thanks, Remus."  Harry had a poke around in the box and pulled out a folded length of paisley patterned silk.  He snorted.  "It'll be a paisley dragon!"

"Probably more charming than the usual sort," his godfather said.  He carefully picked up one of the Quidditch player puppets and examined it.  "You draw well."

"Thanks," Harry said.  His attention was more on the box; he'd just found a square parcel shrink-wrapped in plastic.  Definitely not a wizard product.  He pulled it out and blinked.  "Um … is this CD player for me?"

"Call it an early birthday present from Sirius and me," Remus said, with a smile.  "Although I think it's a bit rotten of Sirius to give you something else you have to rack your brains over." 

"I don't have anything to plug it into, unless the Manor is wired up and I never noticed," Harry said doubtfully.  "And batteries won't work around magic."

"That's the challenge," Remus replied.  "It is possible to make Muggle electrical devices operate by magic, but it takes a bit of … fiddling."

"I've never been able to make the Universal Energy Charm work," Harry said even more doubtfully.  Which was a pain; it had meant replacing things like his wrist watch (a second-hand, badly scratched reject of Dudley's) with one that was wind-up and buying a magical torch.  _Nothing_ that ran on batteries or even a solar cell would work around magic.  But wizards did have the option of working certain machinery and devices with the Universal Energy Charm, a useful spell that was employed for items like wirelesses, domestic lighting, gramophones, the central machinery of the Floo network, and any Muggle electrical devices that were adapted for wizard use (although anything large was strictly regulated).

"There's a knack to it," his godfather replied, gently lifting the wings of the cardboard dragon to see how they worked.  "You have to set the charm on the object then tune it – the charm that is – into a ley line.  And if you're going to do it here, you need to go outside – somewhere at least as far from the castle as Hagrid's hut.  Hogwarts sits on a convergence of several ley lines, which is why you probably failed before.  The magic was simply to strong, overwhelming whatever it was you were trying to power.  You also need to make sure that you don't pick a ley line that's too strong, or you'll tune the charm into it and it won't work on lesser lines running around the country.  But once it's tuned to a moderate ley line, it should work anywhere."

Harry was intrigued.  "I'll try that later." 

He dipped into the box again and pulled out a handful of CDs.  Judging by the bands involved (all Muggle, as wizards only produced records) the taste was mostly Sirius's, although Harry reserved judgement on that as he knew that Remus had a startlingly eclectic taste in music too.

It occurred to him then that Sirius must have spent the better part of £100 on this 'early birthday present', which made Harry feel just a little uncomfortable, although it was nothing unusual.  Sirius could be embarrassingly lavish in his gift giving, and Harry's Firebolt broomstick had amply demonstrated just how over the top the older man could go when he tried.

"It'll be your birthday in a few days," Remus remarked, apparently reading his mind.  "Then we'll probably be going back to the Manor to start phase two of this project.  How do you think you've done while you've been here?"

"It's been interesting," Harry admitted.  "I like Animation."

"I got that impression," his godfather said, giving him a quick grin.  "What about Sirius's Animagery lessons?"

Harry made a face.  "Not so good.  That's going to take a bit longer."

"It took Sirius and your father three years, and even Minerva McGonagall admits that it took her the better part of a year to understand the theory and put it into practice.  Don't be disheartened and don't take risks by trying to rush it.  What about Occlumency?"

"That's going better," Harry said, and there was both relief and satisfaction in his voice.  "Of course, it helped having the run of the library, especially the Restricted Section.  There was a book in there that had more than a paragraph of instructions in it."  He pointed to a roll of neatly inscribed notes sitting on top of a pile of books on the window seat.  "Of course, it would have been nice if Snape had told me all this stuff in the first place.  I borrowed a Secretary Quill from Pince's desk and got it to copy the whole chapter for me."

Remus raised a brow.  "Do I want to know how you managed to borrow _anything_ from Madam Pince's desk drawers?"

"It's not the drawers that are the problem," Harry remarked, unconcerned.  "It's getting her away from the desk long enough to do anything.  But Professor Flitwick says she's doing a tour of old archives in Russia, so it was no problem jimmying the locks."

Remus reflected that hearing this was a lot like listening to James Potter relating one of his escapades as a boy, except that James would have got a lot more enjoyment out of it.  Harry apparently viewed "jimmying" Madam Pince's desk drawers as a tiresome necessity, nothing more.

"Did you put the quill back?" he asked casually.  "I only ask, because they're expensive and she's liable to raise the roof if she finds one gone …."

"I cleaned it too," Harry said, shooting him a quick grin.

"Excellent!"  Remus carefully put the dragon back into the tray with the other puppets.  "So, what about the other training?"

There was a pause.  Harry found the package of balsa wood and turned it over in his hands for a moment.

"I don't think Mr. Shacklebolt likes me much," he said finally.  "I mean, I know Snape hates me and that's mostly okay, even if he says stuff that pisses me off sometimes.  But I'm not sure what Mr. Shacklebolt's problem is, so I'm never sure if I'm doing stuff wrong and he's just not telling me, or if there's something else the matter.  I don't _try_ to piss him off," he said matter-of-factly.  "But he acts weird around me.  A lot of the Order people do, actually," he added as an afterthought.

"Don't let it get to you," Remus said quietly.  "People can be fools, as Sirius will tell you."

"They can go screw themselves," Harry said scornfully.  "I'm not doing any of this for _them._ "

"I would hope you're doing it for yourself."

"Mostly," the boy replied with a shrug.  He put the balsa wood back in the box and picked up his tray of puppets.  "I'm going to show these to Professor Flitwick after lunch, then maybe he'll let me make a three dimensional one.  It's pretty hard to make everything work properly when they're flat."

 

xXx

 

Lunch was with Dumbledore in his private library, a room that made Remus almost twitch with the desire to poke around the bookshelves and see what rare tomes the headmaster possessed.  Professor Flitwick joined them and conversation was casual and pleasant as they ate. 

Harry had a lot of questions about the legal side of Animation, and he and Professor Flitwick were just getting engrossed in this when Sirius arrived, deeply apologetic about his tardiness.  He drew a seat up to the small table and immediately reached across to drop a letter beside Harry's plate.

"That arrived just after Remus left this morning!" he said, grinning.

Harry turned it over curiously and froze when he saw the return address on the back.  It was from the Board of Magical Examinations.

"My Charms NEWT?"

"Oh, excellent!" Professor Flitwick said enthusiastically.  "Well – open it up!  Although I have no doubts of the result."

"Indeed," Professor Dumbledore said, peering at Harry over the top of his spectacles.

Harry wasn't quite so sure, but he broke the seal (charmed against tampering) and unfolded the sheet of stiff parchment.  And let out a breath.

"I passed.  Only with eighty-two percent, but I passed!"

Professor Flitwick exclaimed his satisfaction, Sirius whooped, and Remus reached over to shake Harry's shoulder gently.

"What do you mean, _only_ with eighty-two percent?  Harry, you took it a year early and at short notice!  That's a marvellous result!  Well done."

"Very well done indeed," Professor Dumbledore agreed, smiling.  "I too never doubted it, though.  This is very pleasing news, and a testament to your hard work."

Harry grinned at them all, for the moment all masks dropped.

"I, um … do you mind if I go and tell Hagrid?  I promised I would."

"He'll be dead chuffed," Sirius told him, grinning back.  "Go on, scram!"

"Excellent," Dumbledore said in a deeply satisfied tone, when Harry had gone.  "This will free up the time he would have spent in Charms over the coming year for other projects.  Filius, you, I and Severus will have to put our heads together when Minerva returns and plan the seventh year schedules accordingly."

"If he agrees to return to school," Sirius remarked.

"I think there is little doubt that he will."  The headmaster picked up the tray of puppets Harry had left on his chair and gently turned them over with one long finger.  "His attention has been caught.  But just in case … perhaps it is time I approached Arthur Weasley.  Gentlemen, there will be an Order meeting here tomorrow evening, but I think it better if Harry is occupied elsewhere for the duration."

"Not a problem, Headmaster," Flitwick said at once.  "I can set him a project to work on in the meantime – "

"Although it might be as well to be honest with him and tell him that he's being deliberately excluded," Remus remarked.  "He won't like it, but I think it's less likely that he'll take it badly if we just tell him."

"Harry-logic," Sirius said ruefully.  "Good point though."

"I would include him," Dumbledore said mildly, "but I see no reason why he should be exposed to our more phobic supporters.  Would that we could all be shielded from their unfortunate opinions, but those who hunt dragons must also contend with wyverns, as the old saying goes."

Sirius made a sour face.  "Bellecoeur?" he asked.

"Marius-Martyn will be one attendee, but this time Madam Bellecoeur also joins us and I hope we may induce her to look kindly upon Harry.  She holds greater sway among her kindred than Marius."

"Isn't she related to Harry through his grandmother Elvira?" Flitwick asked.

"A cousin, I believe."  Dumbledore took a sip of his tea.  "Petuarius Pettifer will also be joining us."

"Good lord, how did you winkle him out of his study?" Sirius asked.  "I've sent him three owls in as many weeks and not had a word from him in return.  I was starting to think he was dead after all and no one had noticed!"

"Petuarius is something of a recluse and prefers his own company of late," the headmaster replied reprovingly.  "He gave up family business many years ago and gave it all into his eldest son's hands, retiring to the family estate.  Your owls are most likely waiting for him at the town house.  However, I believe he is eager to catch a glimpse of Henry's grandson before they are formally introduced on Friday.  And his opinions are always worth hearing.  He too may sway others where we would fail."

"This sounds worryingly like a rallying call," Remus said quietly.

"It is time we counted our numbers and made the best of them," Dumbledore said after a moment.  "We _must_ be sure of our ground, now that Voldemort grows bolder.  I feel – and so does Severus – that it cannot be long before our enemy steps into the open and declares himself.  We must be sure who is with us when that happens."

 

xXx

 

"I'll be glad when we can move this three-ring circus back to the Manor," Sirius said wearily, when the impromptu lunch meeting had broken up.  "I've seen more of the Floo Network in the last couple of weeks than most people see in a lifetime." 

He paused in the second floor corridor and looked out of one of the windows that faced over towards Hagrid's Hut and the Forbidden Forest.  He could see Harry sitting on the steps of the hut in the shadow of Hagrid's enormous figure.

"It's good news about Harry's Charms NEWT," Remus remarked.

"Only if we can persuade him to go back to school in September," Sirius said pessimistically.

"Don't worry so much!  Personally, I think this was something he needed.  It's a small bit of success _now_.  A boost to his confidence.  And I really think the offer of continuing Animation lessons with Flitwick will be a draw - it's obvious how much he's enjoying it."

"What use will it be though?" Sirius asked, turning to face his partner.  "Seriously, Remus - what can he do with it?  The whole discipline is hemmed in with legal restrictions that make it nearly impossible to put it to practical use.  Even my father was only really interested in the experimental and academic side of it."

Remus regarded him with amused sympathy for a moment or two.  It didn't often surface, but Sirius had a depressive side to his character that occasionally erupted into unexpected fits of gloom and pessimism that nothing anyone said could lighten.  There was nothing for it but to try to keep him occupied and ride them out.

"Have you seen his puppets?" he asked.  "He was making them move around earlier, when I arrived."

"He hasn't shown me yet."

"He's got a definite talent for it, and considering his sense of humour I should think it'd be hilarious if he actually staged a show with them.  I was going to try and lure him into it."

"Puppets."  Sirius snorted and shook his head.  "So long as he doesn't take up ventriloquism as well."

Remus laughed and slapped his arm gently.  "He'd do it just to annoy you!  Seriously, Padfoot, what's the matter?"

"I've got another hearing at the Ministry the day after tomorrow," Sirius said, and Remus's smile faded. 

"Will you get their decision?"

"That's what the letter says."

There was a pause. 

"If you win the case, that'll be really good news - won't it?  We'll be able to fix the house up as planned and you won't have to stay with the Aurors if you don't want to …."

"If I win the case, then I really am the Heir of the House of Black," Sirius said.

Remus was silent for a moment.  "I see."

Sirius gave him a bittersweet smile.  "Yeah.  With rank go privileges … and responsibilities, as I was reminded at the last hearing.  I - I didn't say before, Moony, but one of the things they asked me was whether I was prepared to take on the continuation of the family name.  Narcissa's biggest argument against me was my contempt for the Blacks' interests when I walked out before.  She said that if I had no interest in the family's well-being, then I had no right to the family's property.  And you know what?  I couldn't deny that."

"Padfoot, she married a _Malfoy._   She doesn't exactly have the moral advantage."

"That's not the point, is it?  It's not about what a Malfoy would do and whether that's right, it's about what _I_ propose to do."  Sirius shifted from foot to foot restlessly.  "I keep thinking of what Henry Potter would have said."

Remus frowned.  "Henry?  Why?"

"When I left home, I went to James.  I didn't know where else to go - Uncle Alphard didn't have room for me at his place.  But when I got to The Rose House, I had a long, uncomfortable talk with Henry."  Sirius swallowed.  "He asked me if I understood what I was giving up, and if I really appreciated what it meant for someone like me to abandon my family.  I - I didn't take that very well.  I asked him how I was supposed to stay there when they were the kind of people they were.  He said that was his point and offered to mediate with my father for me if I went back.  But I told him I wouldn't go back to a bunch of Dark wizards who practically had a foot in Voldemort's camp.  He told me that the offer was still there if I ever changed my mind, but I thought he was nuts …."

"Henry didn't exactly hold your father and mother in affection, you know," Remus said quietly.

"No," Sirius said heavily.  "That's ….  I'm only just coming to realise what he meant, Moony.  My family were Dark wizards for generations, _but I wasn't_.  And I was the heir.  If I hated what they were so much, I was in the best position to change things."

"But you walked away."

"But I walked away," Sirius agreed.  "I gave it all up, property, privileges, the lot, and told myself I was doing something smart.  But now I'm asking for it all back, just so I can get my hands on the money.  What does that say about me?"

"It says that you're human, Padfoot," Remus pointed out dryly.  "It's not like you want the money so you can blow it all on expensive parties, mistresses and buying people off at the Ministry.  You want it so that you can do up the house for the Order to use."

"Still doesn't feel quite right," Sirius replied tiredly.  "There was a time when using the old family pile to cock a snook at a bunch of Dark wizards would have seemed clever.  I must be getting old, because the principle of the thing feels off to me now.  I'm the heir of one of the oldest wizard families in Europe.  Somehow it feels like I'm betraying what it means to be a wizard."

"Sounds like you're getting a bit above yourself, you mean," Remus retorted.  "Don't be so melodramatic, Sirius!"

"Maybe I am," Sirius admitted.  "But … maybe it's because Harry's growing up and I'm coming into contact with a lot of stuff from back then, but I still keep coming back to Henry and the look on his face when he was talking to me that day.  He was a good man, Remus, the kind of wizard we hold up to our kids as an ideal.  And I can't help thinking that he wouldn't have liked what I'm doing.  Especially since I'm raising his grandson."

"Sirius …." Remus sighed.  He could see where this was leading.  "Don't get me wrong, I do see what you're saying here.  But you can't buy into the system in a woolly half-and-half way, you know.  Either you go into this with the clear intention of doing nothing more than get your hands on the money, and accept that, or you rejoin the First Families wholesale.  And if you do that, it means taking up your seat on the Wizengamot, playing politics, and providing yourself with an heir.  All three are things I've suggested you do in the past and you practically snapped my nose off about it.  Particularly the part about the heir."

His partner grimaced.  "It's not the heir I object to, it's what I'd have to do to get one.  They don't hatch out of eggs, unfortunately."

Remus closed his eyes for a moment.  "I don't like it either, Padfoot, but you must do what you have to do.  I - I'll try not to give you a hard time about it."

"I know that."

They watched Harry saying his farewells to Hagrid in the distance and setting off back towards the castle.

"Of course, there's the question of what kind of parents we'd make," Sirius said eventually.

"After all the practice with Harry?  You were very good with him when he was a baby.  Even Lily said so."

Sirius half-smiled.  "It was your fingers he liked to chew on while he was teething."

"He had excellent taste," Remus said, smiling back.

"And there's the question of how Harry himself would react if I suddenly produced a little rival.  I don't want him to think he's an unwanted extra in the family just because I have to do my dynastic duty.  He's had enough of that treatment in his life."

That gave Remus a pause.  "I think it might depend on how it's presented to him.  If he was involved in the decision from the beginning …?"

There was a pause as the two of them considered this, then Sirius shuddered.

"No, I'm sorry.  I can't deal with this until I've had a couple of stiff drinks."

"It's not like you have to sort it all out right this minute anyway," Remus said, privately a little relieved.  He felt that they had enough on their plates right now.  "Come on, let's go and give Harry his daily beating up - soften him up for Snape's mind-bending session later."

"Poor kid," Sirius said, but he shook off the remnants of his gloom and followed Remus out to the meadow.


	3. Chapter 3

Sirius walked into Dumbledore's office the following day and straight into argument.  It was early evening and he had been expecting to find Harry in the grounds with Kingsley Shacklebolt and Severus Snape.  Instead, Harry was nowhere to be seen and Dumbledore seemed to be acting as referee to a fine three-way quarrel between Kingsley, Snape and Remus.

"What have I missed?" he asked, intrigued to see Kingsley of all people in such an apparent temper.

"Harry has raised a question of ethics with Kingsley and we appear to have a difference of opinion on how he should be answered," Dumbledore said mildly.

"Harry and ethics?  Good luck," Sirius said, amused.

"Not funny, Black," Kingsley said curtly.  "I won't be a party to encouraging the boy in the grossest of illegalities - "

"Who said anything about _encouraging_ him?" Remus interrupted angrily.  "What kind of upbringing do you think Sirius and I are struggling to give him?"

"Clearly not the kind of upbringing he needs if - "

"Gentlemen!" Dumbledore interjected.  "If for one moment the two of you - "

But the quarrel merely escalated, and Sirius stared at the three of them before turning reluctantly to Snape as the most likely source of information. 

"Help me out here - what did I miss?"

Snape's lip curled, although for once not at Sirius himself. 

"Potter asked Shacklebolt - not unreasonably - what sanctions might be taken against him should he be forced to use any of the Unforgivable Curses in a confrontation with the Dark Lord or his followers.  It is Shacklebolt's opinion - " and here a sneer appeared " - that Potter should not use _any_ illegal measures in such an event.  He refused to answer the question and Potter reacted in his usual manner, I believe."

Sirius didn't need a translation of what that meant.  Harry didn't take kindly to having his questions evaded or ignored - or worse, replied to inaccurately or incompletely.

"You pillock, Kingsley," he interrupted them, exasperated.  "Flannelling Harry isn't the way to gain his trust or co-operation!"

Shacklebolt flushed angrily.  "I didn't come here to coddle the boy _or_ teach him to be a vigilante, Black!  If you're looking for someone to teach him to be a cold-blooded killer, why don't you hand him over to Snape wholesale?  I am an _Auror_.  I spend my life tracking down people who break our laws in the most depraved manner possible.  And you want me to condone the use of the Avada Kedavra curse?"

"You fool," Snape said coldly.  "And what do you suggest the boy uses to bring down the Dark Lord?  The Jelly-Legs Hex perhaps?  Some of the Weasley brats' itching powder?"

"I'm not condoning the use of Unforgivable Curses," Remus put in curtly.  "Or any illegal measures, for that matter.  But you can hardly expect Harry to face up to Voldemort with his hands effectively tied.  Damn it, Kingsley, we're asking him to risk his life here already!  If you're saying he has to go into this like a virgin sacrifice, with nothing more than a few nice little charms and legal hexes in his arsenal, then I might as well smother him and we can all offer our throats up to Voldemort here and now instead of dragging it out."

Shacklebolt turned to Dumbledore with a clenched jaw. 

"Professor, you fought against licensing Aurors to use the Unforgivable Curses during the last war.  You failed and you _saw_ what came it!  _Moody_ wouldn't use Unforgivables, damn it!  And you expect me to teach the boy - "

"That isn't what Harry asked," Remus interrupted sharply.  "He asked you if he would be prosecuted if he was _forced_ to use an Unforgivable in a life or death situation.  No one's asking you to teach him how to use them!"

"And how am I supposed to answer that?" Shacklebolt snapped.  "If I say he won't be prosecuted, I as good as give him license to use them!  I'm not in a position to tell him that anyway!  The law is the law, for Harry Potter as much as it is for the rest of us, and the law states unequivocally that use of an Unforgivable Curse will receive a life sentence in Azkaban without parole.  No exceptions, Lupin.  Why else do you think they're they called 'unforgivable'?"

"And where," Snape asked softly, "does the law stand when our respected Minister simply bypasses centuries-old, carefully crafted laws by bringing in new regulations as and when he sees fit, to soothe his own paranoia?"

"The Wizengamot – "

"The Wizengamot is riven by dissention, Shacklebolt, and swayed by the canny tongues and ample money of men like Lucius Malfoy.  Many of them are old and afraid – as afraid of young Potter, ridiculous as that may seem, as they are of Lord Voldemort."

"It's not hard to see why that might be!" Shacklebolt shot back.

For a moment no one said anything.  Then Dumbledore said softly, "I have noticed, Kingsley, that you seem unhappy in your role as Harry's tutor.  Might I ask where the problem lies?"

Kingsley's lips tightened.  He said nothing.

Sirius folded his arms, tilting his head to one side as he regarded his colleague.  "You're not afraid of him, Kingsley, surely?"

Shacklebolt turned on him with a glare.  "I think we're expending valuable resources on a means of defence which is chancy at best and appallingly dangerous at worst," he said tightly.  "I think to pin all our hopes on an unpredictable and surly teenaged boy purely on the grounds of a prophecy is foolhardy beyond imagining.  There must be some better way we can deal with Voldemort."

"If only the Dark Lord agreed with you!" Snape said sarcastically, before any of the others could reply.  "Unfortunately, he wants Potter and has no intention of selecting an alternative target.  And if there is one overriding flaw in your statement, Shacklebolt, it is the assumption that we are in enough control of this situation to look for alternatives ourselves."

"We _are_ preparing other means of defence, Kingsley," Dumbledore said firmly.  "You know that as well as I.  But what you forget is that we are not simply teaching young Harry to destroy Voldemort here.  If anything, what we are teaching him is how to save his own life!  Severus has made a very good point – Lord Voldemort will pursue Harry no matter what we do, whether we train him or no.  What I hope to achieve with these extra lessons is the means for Harry to defend himself when his would-be murderer inevitably finds him.  I am not suggesting, and never have, that Harry should carry the terrible burden of Lord Voldemort's malice alone."

"And suppose he pulls off a miracle, destroys Voldemort, and manages to survive it," Shacklebolt said with grim determination.  "What do we do with him then?  Having taught him to be the most effective killer our race has ever known?"

The tension in the Headmaster's office became thick and suffocating; not even the portraits stirred or made a sound.  Only Dumbledore himself seemed unaffected.  He was regarding the Auror over the top of his half-moon spectacles, as he often regarded errant pupils, and his sharp blue eyes remained as kindly and understanding as ever.

"What do you suggest we do with him, Kingsley?" he asked gently.

Shacklebolt remained silent.

"Perhaps we should ask Harry himself what he wishes to do with his life.  His answer, I think, might surprise you a very great deal."

Snape snorted.  "On those occasions when I can penetrate defences, his mind is nauseatingly fixated on one of the Weasley louts."  His expression became more than ordinarily dour.  "A thought that turns my stomach and disturbs my sleep at night, you may be assured."

Dumbledore's eyes began to twinkle and suddenly the tension seemed to ease at little.

"Besides," Remus put in, in a more reasonable tone, "you seem to forget that Professor Dumbledore himself destroyed a Dark wizard of a similar magnitude to Voldemort.  If that makes him such a dangerous individual, why on earth are we entrusting him with our children?"

"A question Cornelius Fudge, too, would like answered!" Dumbledore said cheerfully.  "Gentlemen, it seems to me that we allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by the bigger picture, ignoring the smaller details that are, for now, our more necessary tasks.  We must first deal with those of our supporters who harbour scepticism beyond even yours, Kingsley, and whose motivations are regrettably far less honest or understandable."

Shacklebolt raised a hand to his eyes, rubbing them wearily.  "Please don't misunderstand me," he said after a moment.  "I don't dislike the boy or wish him ill.  I find him … difficult to understand and even more difficult to deal with."

Sirius and Remus exchanged glances.

"Welcome to our world, Kingsley," Sirius said wryly.

"He asked that question," the Auror continued doggedly, "and if he'd shown a shred of concern, some indication that he appreciated the magnitude of what he was asking … but he looked at me with that _face_ , just as though an Unforgivable Curse is something no more heinous than - than unlicensed Apparition."

"Harry has developed unique defences coupled with an equally unique viewpoint on the world," Dumbledore said.  "He has been forced to do so by circumstance.  He suffered emotional and possibly physical abuse from his Muggle relatives.  He was sorted into a House which devalues those members of less than perfect pureblood lineage."  Snape looked like he had things he'd like to say about this point, but he controlled himself.  "And since his return to the magical world he has been relentlessly pursued by Lord Voldemort and his life constantly threatened.  Harry deals with these things in his own way, upon his own terms, and you would not be the first to be misled by the apparent unconcern he affects."

"I have little patience for Potter's mind-games and pretensions," Snape put in unexpectedly, "but to give him his due, he only asks the questions I too would be asking were I in his position.  As a community we expect him to achieve what older, more skilled and experienced wizards have failed to do: to remove the threat of the Dark Lord forever.  He does not seem - as many would – to seek personal gain from doing so.  All he asks is that he should not be punished for it, which is the one thing, surely, he should not _have_ to ask."

"And yet he will be punished if we can't sway more opinions in his favour," Sirius said bitterly.  "Fudge'll see to that."

"That, gentlemen, is one of this evening's tasks," Dumbledore said.  "And we should be joining our guests now.  Filius has, I believe, set Harry a project and left him to work on it in the Old Staff Library.  The Order, meanwhile, will be meeting in the Lesser Great Hall."

 

xXx

 

"Hello Harry."

Harry didn't jump - he'd heard the approaching footsteps - but he was surprised by the voice.  Father Marius was standing in the doorway of the library.

"Hullo," he replied.  "I wasn't expecting to see you."

"You know there's an Order meeting tonight, don't you?"  The young priest strolled into the room and came to stand next to the teenager, surveying Harry's array of puppets and craft-making equipment with interest.

"Yeah, but you're not a member, are you?"

"Afraid so."

"You'll be late, then," Harry said amiably.  He finished attaching the arms to his latest cardboard character and laid it flat on the table, smoothing the joints.

"Ugly," Father Marius commented.  "Reminds me of that character in _Martin Miggs_ \- The Reaper, I think he was called."

"Yeah?  I never really got into _Martin Miggs_.  I spent too much time with Muggles to find comics about them funny."  Harry looked at the puppet.  "Considering how paranoid everyone is about even mentioning his name, it seems a bit weird that they'd base a character on Voldemort."

The priest started.  "Is _that_ who this is?"

Harry raised a brow.  "Didn't you know?"

"No, I - well, I've never seen him.  Most people haven't."

"I s'pose not."  Harry touched his wand to the puppet and made it stand up.  "That's what he looked like the last time I saw him."

"He doesn't look human."

"I don't think he is, completely."  Harry willed a little power into the puppet and the arms began to move up and down.

"Why make a puppet out of him?" Father Marius asked, watching curiously.

Harry shot him a sardonic look.  "Makes a change - me pulling his strings."

That gave the priest pause for thought. 

"Is that what you want?  To be pulling his strings instead of him pulling yours?"

Harry let the puppet drop.  "Nah, not really.  I'm not into that kind of power trip.  I mean, telling other people what to do all the time - especially people who hate your guts or just don't want to do stuff - must be a pain in the arse.  I've got better things to do with my life."

"Such as?"

"Dunno yet, but I'll let you know."

Father Marius chuckled.  "No, I don't think ruling the world would be much fun either."

"Ruling the world means dealing with people," Harry said, carefully putting the cardboard puppets back into their box.  "And people are a pretty miserable bunch, mostly."

"I don't know that I can agree with that.  People have their individual problems and sometimes it's hard to see past those problems to the real person, but with a little effort …."

"Dictators don't have that luxury."

"True."

Harry put all his bits of cardboard, tubs of glue, bobbins of thread and paper scissors away, and pulled out the parcel of balsa wood Remus had brought him.  Father Marius watched as he collected a very large book from a nearby shelf and brought it back to the central table, laying it down and leafing through it until he found a full spread image of a dragon's skeleton.

"Remus told me you asked Kingsley Shacklebolt a difficult question today," the priest said.  "I rather thought you might want to ask me something similar."

"I can guess where _you_ stand on that," Harry replied.  "We learned about the Ten Commandments at my Muggle school when I was a kid, and not killing people was pretty high on the list."

"We don't take _quite_ such a simplistic view of the situation with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named."

"Yeah?"  Harry eyed him with interest.

"There's considerable debate among my senior colleagues about it.  It's the view of our Patriarch in Constantinople, for example, that the evil posed by our enemy far outweighs any evil attached to his removal.  Others believe that killing is killing and there would be no excuse for taking even his life.  Killing anyone is a terrible thing, Harry.  I don't think I would be speaking out of turn to say that Father Ignatius and I are far more concerned about the potential damage to _you_ than to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named."

"My immortal soul you mean?"

"Not exactly."  Father Marius chose his words carefully.  "It's a fact, Harry - not a supposition, but a proven _fact_ \- that use of the Unforgivable Curses magically changes the caster in subtle ways.  Especially the Avada Kedavra Curse.  I assume you already know that to cast them effectively you … have to put a certain will and emotion behind them?"

Harry paused.  "I know you have to want them to hurt the person you're casting them on."

"Worse than that, Harry - you have to enjoy it.  You have to want to take a person's soul away and want to use him, to make the Imperius Curse effective.  You have to hate and enjoy hurting a person to use the Cruciatus Curse."  Father Marius hesitated.  "You have to really want a person dead to make the Avada Kedavra Curse work."

Harry picked up his parcel of balsa wood and began to unwrap it.

"He used that on my parents, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"I've always wondered why he didn't just use something else.  It wasn't like he was really after them, is it?  He told my mum to stand aside."  Harry tossed the paper wrapper aside and spread the pieces of wood out on the table.  He didn't look at Father Marius.  "I used to wonder if he'd have left her alone if she'd let him just kill me."

"I don't think so, Harry," the priest said quietly. 

"No, I s'pose not.  I mean, not if he enjoyed using it."

"It leaves a mark," Father Marius began. 

"Yeah, I know," Harry said dryly and he turned to face the priest, pushing his hair back off his forehead for a moment to reveal the lightning-bolt scar there.

"True, but that wasn't what I meant.  It marks you mentally and magically, generating and sustaining those kinds of feelings and makes it easier to use the curses a second time.  And the more they are used the easier it becomes.  It can become a drug, Harry."

"And you reckon that would happen to me if I used it to kill him?"

"I know you wouldn't be the same person afterwards."

"I don't know that it would work anyway," Harry said calmly.  He reached into his box of equipment and pulled out a craft knife, then looked at the priest.  "You're going to be really late, you know."

"They won't miss me for a few minutes longer," Father Marius said soberly.

 

xXx

 

When Dumbledore spoke of the Order of the Phoenix meeting he did not, of course, refer to the _whole_ Order.  That would have been impossible for a number of reasons, not least because certain members of the Order remained anonymous to the majority for their own safety.  This meeting comprised what Dumbledore often referred to as the 'high council' - although again that was misleading.  These were people in the Order who felt, for various reasons, that they had a right to be involved in the decision-making side of things.  Most of them were influential purebloods, although for the sake of balance a number of 'lesser' individuals were also included. 

This meeting was purely to give the 'high council' a status report and allow them to offer opinions and suggestions.  The real day-to-day decisions were taken by a small number of individuals around Dumbledore - people like Sirius, Remus and Kingsley Shacklebolt, to name but a few - who had in many cases been the core of the original Order.

Nevertheless, Sirius always thought it was a little unnerving to attend one of these meetings, however redundant it might be in practical terms, because it was only then that it was possible to get an idea of how polarised wizarding Britain was over the issue of Voldemort. 

There were people in the Lesser Great Hall that evening who he had never expected to see in the same room, let alone with their heads together in conversation.  But there was Drusus Incanto, the Bishop of Avebury and Patriarch of the Omnis Arcanum Church in England, talking gravely with Hegwytha Applebrook, the High-Priestess of the White Goddess Brethren.  Members of the First Families were sitting shoulder to shoulder with Aurors and MLEs, who in turn sat alongside shady characters like Mundungus Fletcher.  All in all, there were about thirty people in attendance.

Two faces stood out to Sirius as being new to the Order: the elegantly cloaked and masked figure of Persephone Bellecoeur, the matriarch of the Bellecoeur family; and the aged but upright Petuarius Pettifer, one of Harry's trustees.  Sirius hadn't seen him since the funeral of Harry's grandfather, but the old man hadn't changed an inch.

"This will either be a talking shop or a mass walk-out," Remus murmured in his ear softly.  "I note Criggle is here.  And Marius Bellecoeur looks like someone took his favourite toy away from him."

Sirius followed his eyes.  "Only one person here who could have done that."

"Doesn't mean she's on our side, unfortunately."

"She came, Remus.  That's an enormous concession."

"Yes, but what does she want from it?  She's the real head of the Bellecoeur family and so far she hasn't indicated anything other than that she doesn't support Voldemort _or_ Fudge.  There's still a big gap between that and joining the Order."

"I don't think Dumbledore brought her here tonight without some guarantees," Sirius said.

"I don't see Persephone Bellecoeur submitting to a memory charm at the end of the evening," Remus replied dryly. 

"We'll see.  Here's Dumbledore now."

The Headmaster was approaching the head of the room by an indirect route, circling the mass of Order members, pausing to greet people here and there.  He was carrying Fawkes the Phoenix on his left wrist, and the gloriously plumaged bird was eyeing the crowd with half-closed eyes.  At length he made it to the front of the room and a sudden hush fell as he busied himself settling Fawkes on a perch that had been set there.

Then he turned to face them all and surveyed them over the top of his spectacles.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  Forgive me if I have kept you waiting.  I thank you all for joining me, and offer an especial welcome to those who have not attended one of our meetings before."  He bowed in the direction of the masked woman.  "Madam Bellecoeur – " he tilted his head towards Mr. Pettifer, "Petuarius, old friend.  My gratitude for joining us."

Madam Bellecoeur inclined her head regally, but Mr. Pettifer stood up and with an old, courtly grace bowed deeply to Dumbledore and the assembly before resuming his seat.

"I shall keep you all waiting no longer," Dumbledore continued.  "Arthur?"

Arthur Weasley, who had been sitting near the front, stood up and turned towards the group.

"I shan't try to brush over things," he said briskly, though he looked a little uncomfortable under all the eyes.  "As I'm sure you're all aware, my son Percy works in the Minister's office.  He hasn't been in quite so much favour with Fudge in the past year, thanks to Lucius Malfoy's interference, but he's still privy to a great deal that goes on there.  Now, we know that Fudge has been running himself in circles over the past few months, trying simultaneously to shut up rumours about You-Know-Who and get a grip on the situation.  Well, yesterday Percy told me that there is a serious move afoot among the Minister's advisors to put some kind of internal task force together to deal with the problem.  It's not clear yet exactly what role this force would have or who would be on it, but Percy thinks two of the options being considered are setting up an organisation similar to the Order to oppose the Death Eaters and … a negotiation team."

Instant uproar.  Under the cover of all the noise, Sirius turned to Remus and said cheerfully, "Well, at least we _know_ Fudge is a lunatic now.  What more proof do people need?"

"It's not Fudge we have to worry about," Remus returned.

"If we could _please_ let Arthur finish his report!" Dumbledore cried, his voice easily carrying over the hubbub.

It took several minutes for everyone to settle down and Arthur looked decidedly flustered by that time.  He discreetly mopped his forehead with a large striped handkerchief and cleared his throat.

"There's more," he said apologetically.  "Percy is fairly sure that whatever the nature of this force, Lucius Malfoy will be involved."

More uproar, which was only silenced by Madam Bellecoeur unexpectedly standing up and rapping her pearl-handled walking stick on the floor. 

"I believe a little clarification would be helpful," she stated.  She had a surprisingly deep voice; it was difficult to tell her age, given that she was covered almost from head to foot, but her carefully coifed hair showing just underneath her hat was silver.  Despite leaning on the walking stick, she was as upright as a ramrod and haughty in both tone and bearing.  "I would be interested to know why the name of a man who is a fixture in the Wizengamot should provoke such a reaction merely for carrying out Ministry business."

"Can she be that sheltered?" Remus whispered to Sirius.

"No," Sirius whispered back.  "No one could call her stupid.  I think she just wants someone to accuse Malfoy out loud and offer her some proper evidence."

He stood up then and looked towards Dumbledore.  "May I?"  At Dumbledore's nod, he turned to her.  "Sirius Black, ma'am," he said and bowed.

"I know your name and your face, young man," she said dryly.  "I also know your reputation.  It comes as no surprise to see you in this company."

"Thank you," Sirius replied, equally dryly.  Her mask was rather daunting, hiding her expression, but he forged ahead.  "On the matter of Lucius Malfoy, I believe I can offer some information.  For a start, he was present at the Ministry a year ago when my godson was lured to the Department of Mysteries to retrieve a prophecy record for Voldemort."

"I repeat; Lucius Malfoy is a member of the Wizengamot.  His presence at the Ministry is hardly unusual."

"Does he usually attend the Wizengamot in the middle of the night, in the company of my cousin Bellatrix Lestrange and other wanted criminals, for the purpose of attacking a sixteen year old boy?" Sirius asked coolly.

"Your proof?" Madam Bellecoeur demanded.

"I saw him there.  So did several others present tonight, including Professor Dumbledore.  Malfoy and Bellatrix escaped – their associates didn't.  Unfortunately, Cornelius Fudge doesn't accept our word about Malfoy's presence."

"Given your chequered history, young Black, are you surprised?"  She turned away, dismissing him.  "I came here to discover more about the boy, Dumbledore, not about the likely predilections of the Malfoy family.  My son – " she glanced at Marius-Martyn, "would have me believe that your sole strategy against these Death Eaters involves turning a chancy half-blood brat into some manner of assassin – "

"With respect, Madam," Sirius said curtly to her back, "I must ask you _not_ to refer to my godson in those terms."

"Sirius," Remus warned softly.

Mr. Pettifer had got to his feet again. 

"If Madam Bellecoeur requires reassurance," he said politely, "perhaps I may be of assistance.  I, as Henry Potter's lifelong friend, stood as witness to the boy's birth and to his grandfather's formal acknowledgement of him as his only son's heir.  Young Henry – Harry, as I believe he is known – is a Potter, the only Potter left, and I stand as his trustee and guarantor."

A middle-aged man with a shock of faded blond hair and a stiff beard jumped to his feet angrily. 

"Old Henry Potter had no choice, Pettifer!  He was left at the end of his days with an unreliable son and a Mudblood for a daughter-in-law, with the result that he was all but forced to acknowledge the brat or face his family dying out!"

Sirius lunged and Remus seized the back of his robes just in time.  "Padfoot, _no!_ "

But Pettifer held up one hand in an elegant gesture that stopped the furious Sirius in his tracks.  He turned to the other man mildly.

"Do you call me a liar, Quintus?"

"Gentlemen …."  Dumbledore was quickly approaching, but Pettifer was undeterred.

"Thank you, Albus.  Well, Quintus?  Do you stand there and call me a liar to my face?  For I will happily meet you when and where you please, if you claim it so."

There was a sticky pause.  A hush had fallen over the room, everyone watching with varying degrees of interest or alarm.

"Either claim it or withdraw, Criggle," Madam Bellecoeur said contemptuously, when the silence stretched out.

"I accept that Pettifer tells the truth as he sees it," Criggle said tightly.  "No insult was intended and I apologise if what I said was taken that way."  The room relaxed a little.  "Nevertheless," and he shot a sour look at Sirius, "no matter Black's partiality, no one can deny that Henry Potter was left in an impossible situation just before his passing."

"You know nothing of his situation or how he felt about it," Mr. Pettifer said rather coldly.  "Your apology is accepted, but I would advise you not to make ill-judged assumptions about those who are unhappily no longer among us.  Or of those who are young and whose only crime is being born."

"My godson is a wizard," Sirius said sharply.  "His father was a wizard, his mother was a witch, and his grandparents were fine, decent people I was proud to know.  _Both_ sets of his grandparents," he added pointedly.  "He was born a Potter, but if he'd been born in a ditch and the son of a Muggle milkman, I would still be proud to be his godfather and guardian.  He is who he is and if you can't judge him by that instead of by his bloodlines, Criggle – "

"I judge him by _what_ he is!" Criggle snapped angrily.  "Slytherin!  Parselmouth!  The puppet of the very creature we seek to destroy!"

"Harry Potter is no man's puppet," Professor Dumbledore said, in a tone that silenced the room.  "Do not be misled by the nature of the connection between him and Lord Voldemort.  I defy anyone, witch,  wizard or other, to prove that he is anything less than his own man, with his own thoughts, his own beliefs, his own feelings."  He stared down his nose at Quintus Criggle.  "You talk of school houses and Parseltongue as though they are defining characteristics of a wizard, Quintus.  Yet I can name five Parselmouths in history who were noted benefactors of our society, leading blameless and productive lives.  The list of Slytherins who went on to distinguish themselves in benign careers is incalculable.  And yet on the basis of these two traits alone you will pre-judge a young man you have never met and know almost nothing else about."

"On what other information are we _supposed_ to judge him?" a witch a few seats away demanded.  "With respect, Dumbledore, you and Black between you keep the boy so coddled that we're forced to rely on newspapers and hearsay for information.  Yet you expect us to entrust the future of our world to this untried youngster who was raised by Muggles and by all accounts rejects everything from our society's values to his own parents."

"And which values are those?" Remus put in sharply.  "On what grounds are you claiming that he rejects his parents?"

"I have a son at this school," the woman retorted.  "I'm not wholly ignorant of what goes on here!  He shows contempt for others, scorns the traditions of his house - "

"He doesn't beat up first years, you mean?" Sirius said sarcastically.  "Well, that's a shame isn't it?"

"Thank you, Sirius," Dumbledore said sharply.

The Bishop of Avebury cleared his throat and stood up.  "Forgive me, but I think there's a valid question to be answered here," he said gently.  "The Potter family were members of my diocese of long standing and generally speaking a more decent, upstanding, Christian family wasn't to be found.  But Father Ignatius at the Church of the Holy Bones informs me that young Henry Potter resists all attempts to fully enrol him as a son of the Church, using arguments that range from merely contrary to downright perverse.  It has been suggested that the boy even claims to be an atheist, which you must admit is a disturbing claim from a young man with his personal history."

"He's a _teenager!_ " Sirius protested.  "With respect, your Grace, all teenagers are contrary and difficult - it's written in the handbook somewhere!"

There was a smattering of laughter at this and even the Bishop smiled, although he didn't let it deflect him.

"Nevertheless, if the boy is so set against Confirmation and - "

"Forgive me, your Grace."  Father Marius inserted himself into the central group deprecatingly.  "Please forgive my lateness, everyone.  I've been talking to Harry - "

"Do you mean to say the brat's _here?_ " Quintus Criggle interrupted, outraged.

"Of course he's here," Sirius said coolly.  "You don't think we'd leave him at the Manor on his own, do you?  Use some sense, Criggle!"

"May I finish?" Father Marius asked quickly.

"Of course," Dumbledore told him courteously.

Father Marius flashed them all a charming smile.  "I've just been talking to Harry and I'm pleased to say that he's agreed to be Confirmed, as soon as I judge him prepared."

Remus told himself that he wasn't going to sag where he stood.  He glanced at Sirius, who was grinning wickedly.

"What did you say?" he asked him.  "Contrary and difficult?  If we didn't have those words to describe Harry, we'd have to think up new ones."

"I like them better than "evil" and "unbalanced" or whatever other terms the _Daily Prophet_ prefers to pin on him lately," Sirius replied.

"Well … this certainly changes matters," the Bishop remarked, a little disconcerted.  "It would perhaps be as well if I talked to Mr. Potter myself, though."

"Harry comes of age on Thursday," Sirius said.  "There's a small formal gathering at his family home planned to mark the occasion and we would be honoured if you would join us, your Grace."

His Grace's response was drowned out by the sudden, agitated rapping of Madam Bellecoeur's cane on the floor.  When she saw that she had everyone's attention, she pointed the cane at Dumbledore.

"If the boy is here, I demand to see him," she said curtly.

"Madam Bellecoeur, you're already on the guest list for Thursday," Sirius said, after a moment's hesitation.

"I'm not interested in seeing him when he's wrapped up in fine robes and coached for the part, Black," she told him sharply.  "I want to see him now, as he really is.  No tutoring, no masks, no guarded tongue."

"With respect, ma'am," Remus said, "if you want to meet the true Harry Potter, you'll wait a long time.  He's habitually guarded and defensive, especially with strangers."

"Forgive me for pointing this out," Dumbledore interjected smoothly, "but we do have a meeting to conduct now in any case."

"I'll not be put off on this matter, Dumbledore," Madam Bellecoeur warned.

"I would not suggest it," the Headmaster replied courteously.  "I believe something may be arranged when our other business is completed.  In the meantime …?"

After a moment's hesitation everyone resumed their seats.

 

xXx

 

The Old Staff Library had great long windows down one side which caught the afternoon sun.  It should have been stiflingly hot inside, even with some of the windows thrown open but, as with all the libraries at Hogwarts, the temperature was carefully regulated to conserve the books and Harry basked in the light that poured across the long table where he worked on the project Professor Flitwick had set for him.  A wireless set, borrowed from Remus, was playing the current Magical Top Ten and he chanted lyrics along with the rap artist Shrivelfig as he carefully assembled his latest puppet out of pieces of balsa wood and silk.

This one would be three dimensional, the basic structure made out of balsa wood 'bones' covered with a light silken cloth 'skin'.  It was another dragon - a tartan dragon, in fact, which amused Harry even as he carefully glued and stitched the limbs together.

He wondered what Ron would make of his puppet collection when he returned, and what his friend was doing right now in Egypt.  In his last postcard Ron had mentioned accompanying his brother Bill around the Muggle souks, looking for cursed items that had somehow escaped the wizard authorities' control.  Harry would very much have liked to be with them.  In fact, Harry would very much have liked to be with Ron no matter where he was. 

It was over three weeks into the holiday now, and while it was hardly unusual for Harry to spend the summer break exclusively in the company of adults, this year it was chafing at him.  It felt like he'd never left school, which he accepted as a price of this extra training, but usually at school there were other people of his own age around.  Being the sole focus of his teachers' attention became uncomfortable after a while and having Ron there (okay, even having _Granger_ there, or Blaise, or Tony Goldstein) would have made it easier.  Someone to talk to, someone to joke with, someone to ask the questions that it didn't always occur to him to ask at the right moment, someone to split the pressure with when unnervingly intense people like Snape and Kingsley Shacklebolt were teaching him. 

But really Harry wanted Ron there.  He could have coped with the rest if he'd had Ron to talk to in between times.  To talk to and to do other things with; the things they'd both wanted to do over the previous term but hadn't been able to because of pressure of school work and an annoying lack of opportunities.

It was no use thinking about it.  Ron would return eventually, but Harry didn't fool himself into thinking that even then his friend would necessarily be able to spend much time with him. 

He concentrated on putting the final few stitches into a wing, then spread the dragon puppet out on the table.  It wasn't particularly big, having a wingspan of perhaps fourteen inches at most, but it was accurate enough that he thought it might fly under the influence of magic.  But there was only one way to find out.

Then he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye and straightened up, turning towards the door.

"Hello Professor," he said to the Headmaster.

Dumbledore smiled.  "Hello Harry.  Is this your latest project?"  He chuckled as he stooped to inspect the puppet.

Harry carefully picked up the dragon, supporting limbs that were limp without traditional puppet strings. 

"I was just going to try and make it fly."

"Then by all means make the attempt, my boy."

Spreading the dragon out across his left arm, Harry fumbled his wand out of the back pocket of his jeans and took a moment to control his breathing and focus. 

It was important to get the power just _so_ , to summon it consciously and feel it pool inside him, before attempting to direct it into the puppet through his wand.  Harry found this the most difficult part of the exercise; conscious control of his power was still only sporadic, despite following Professor Flitwick's instructions minutely, and he didn't have to be told that this was only one of several disciplines he was learning that would be affected at the higher levels if he couldn't achieve better control.  What Harry didn't understand was why sometimes it seemed as though the power leapt to his bidding, and in great enough quantities that he felt he could almost level mountains with it, whilst on other occasions it was almost a fight to do simple spells he'd mastered in his first and second years at school.

Today was one of the former occasions; the power was there, almost without conscious thought, and Harry merely had to touch his wand-tip to the puppet to pour simulated life into its frame.  The light wooden backbone straightened, the tail lifted, the legs flexed and the wings stretched.  The head reared up and in a heartbeat it went from a loose connection of parts to a simulacrum of a dragon.

Holding his breath, Harry stretched out his left hand cautiously and felt the puppet's wooden claws gripping his forearm in response to the movement.  The wings dropped slightly, but the body was taut, waiting.

"Fly," Harry told it firmly, tapping the head lightly with his wand.  He tossed it into the air.

The dragon leapt and with a few initially wobbly down-strokes of its wings, it flew.

Harry couldn't stop himself letting out a little crow of triumph, a distinct lapse in his usual self-control around Professor Dumbledore, but he couldn't help it - controlling a three dimensional puppet was entirely different from the flat cardboard images he had been working with until now, involving separate animations of many different moving parts and fine co-ordination to make them move as a single entity.  The little tartan dragon flew, not perhaps as smoothly as he might have wished, but it _flew_.

Dumbledore smiled.

"Excellent work," he praised the teenager emphatically.  "Very well done indeed, Harry."

Harry barely heard him; his attention was all on keeping the little dragon in the air, swooping and gliding, for separation of consciousness - allowing animated objects to maintain 'sentient' behaviour without conscious control - was a far more advanced stage of the discipline which Harry would not achieve for some time.

Dumbledore took advantage of his distraction to glance up at a small gallery some three levels above them, which was hidden among bulging bookshelves and shielded by a Permanent Obscurity Charm, and nod slightly to an invisible audience.

 

xXx

 

Harry was starting to feel more than a little restless from his confinement at Hogwarts, so when Remus greeted him at breakfast one morning with the news that they were to make a trip into Aberdeen, it was all he could do to eat a sensible breakfast in his eagerness to be off.  They had to walk into Hogsmeade to take the Floo from Madam Rosmerta's pub, but the name of their destination that Sirius and Remus gave him meant nothing to Harry, which both puzzled and pleased him as he stepped into the fireplace.  He was of the opinion that even a trip to Riddle Manor would be welcome at this stage.

In the event, it was somewhere far less alarming, although somewhat intimidating in its own way.  Fancyriggs of Aberdeen turned out to be a gentleman wizard's outfitters. 

Harry dropped out of a chimney into a wide fireplace, caught himself with one hand on the brickwork, and hastily stepped out of the grate so that Sirius could follow him.  Remus caught him as he tripped on the hearthstone and helped him up.

"All right there, Harry?"

"Yes – sorry, I always fall out of the Floo."

Remus chuckled.  There was a sudden rush of hot air, another burst of green flames in the fireplace, and Sirius appeared, brushing ash off his robes. 

"Damn Floo network never gets any better," he commented as he stepped over the hearthstone.  "Now – where's MacDuff?"

"A pleasure to see you too, Sirius Black," a woman's voice said, "and for your information, it's _you_ who are late.  I was here ten minutes early."

She was standing beside a display of gentlemen's hats, dressed in Clan tartans and wearing a rakish little hat; a slender figure no taller than Harry, with pale skin, dark brows and bright, frank dark eyes.  She had a light Scottish accent, nothing as noticeable as Professor McGonagall's, but very pleasant on the ear.

"Mo!" Remus said warmly, and stepped forward to take her hands and kiss her cheek.  "Good Lord, how many years has it been?"

"Going on for fifteen," she nodded, and she held a hand out to Sirius.  "Longer still since I saw you.  You're looking none the worse for it, I'll say that."

"Well, _you_ haven't changed a bit," he retorted, but he grinned and kissed her cheek too.  "You're looking well, Mo."

"I keep myself in trim," she said modestly, but her eyes had turned to Harry.  "You'll introduce me?"

"Of course.  Morag MacDuff – Henry Potter the Younger."

Harry started a little at the unfamiliar form of his name, but didn't forget his manners.  He bowed slightly to her.  "Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

She laughed and held out her hand.  "And I you, young Mr. Potter.  You'll not know me, of course, but I was your mother's closest friend.  Well … you're the living image of James, but your eyes are Lily's eyes and that stubborn chin you got from your grandmother!  There was never a more determined woman in the world than Elvira Potter."

Harry didn't know quite what to say to her as they shook hands. 

"Everyone calls me Harry," he said rather lamely.

But Morag nodded.  "Oh, I know!  Your parents were calling you Harry from the day you were born, but you were named for your grandfather."

" _Is_ that my name then?" he asked curiously.  "No one ever said so."

"I don't suppose your aunt and uncle were really aware of it one way or the other," Remus observed.  "They didn't attend your Christening.  Now, shall we get on with business?  Mo, you must have a lot of other things to do today."

So they all walked further into the shop.  Fancyriggs was a big gentlemen's outfitters in a very old-fashioned style.  Harry noticed the thick pile carpet beneath his feet, the dark wooden fittings around the shop, the panelling, the wooden display racks and broad, glass-fronted service desk, the built-in shelves full of folded garments going up towards a high ceiling.  There were faceless wooden mannequins modelling robes of here and there, and long looking-glasses in discreet corners.  It was terribly quiet and dignified, and had a clean, tweedy sort of smell.

"Why have we come here, instead of Madam Malkin's or Gladrags?" Harry asked softly.

"This is where your grandfather's account is kept for formal robes," Remus replied.  "Only your trustees can authorise charges made by shops to your trust and for safety reasons only certain shops are permitted to do so – shops that have historically held accounts for your family."

"That's how the house-elves at your house keep things running, Harry," Morag added, overhearing this.  "They order what they need from certain shops and the accounts are sent to Gringotts, who authorise payment through the trustees."

Interesting.  Harry would have liked to ask more questions, but a very aloof, upright wizard had just glided out from behind a counter and was approaching them.

"Might I be of assistance?" he offered politely.

"Thank you," Sirius said, and suddenly he was very much the pureblood aristocrat.  "My godson requires a set of formal day robes in the family style for his magical coming-of-age celebration."

"Of course, Sir.  The family in question?"

"Potter," Sirius replied in a dignified tone.

The man's eyes widened and he seemed to peer around Sirius discreetly for a moment, taking in the flushing teenager.  Then he let out a breath and his manner became even more deferential.

"Of course, Sir!  I should have realised – but it has been so many years!  Please, Madam, Sirs – if you would condescend to step this way and take seats …."

He clapped his hands and suddenly the place was a whirlwind of activity, with underlings and house-elves everywhere, bowing them all into chairs, offering refreshments and rushing about to collect various tools of their trade.  The head tailor swept out of his office and bowed Harry onto a stool, and a tape measure began to whisk about him, taking measurements. 

Then bolts of cloth were laid out for them all to inspect, all in the same bottle green that Sirius said was the primary Potter family colour, and the tailor fussed over fabrics, styles and trimmings.

"Something lightweight," Morag put in, from her plush armchair where she was enjoying a cup of mint tea.  "The summer heat's upon us, remember, and it'll be heavy enough for the bairn with the waistcoat and everything besides."

"Does Mr. Potter have a preference in waistcoats?" the tailor enquired solicitously.

"Your chance to go wild," Remus teased Harry.  "A waistcoat can be as dramatic as you wish."

"Mr. Henry Potter the Elder liked a discreet black and gold waistcoat," the tailor offered, "but Mr. James was more adventurous."

"That's one word for it," Sirius remarked, exchanging amused looks with Remus.

"Perhaps Harry could look at your sample book," Morag suggested, and the book was at once produced for his perusal.

"He'll need a hat, shoes, socks, shirts, cravats and cufflinks," Remus said to the head outfitter, who was still hovering.

"Of course, Sir.  If I might make a suggestion? – we have a pair of cufflinks in our safe that were commissioned by the late Mrs. Henry Potter for her husband shortly before her passing.  They were never collected.  Perhaps young Mr. Potter might like them, if Madam MacDuff will authorise their release?"

"Perhaps Harry could see them," Sirius asked, and the head outfitter went at once to get them.

Harry was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed.

"I don't know much about clothes," he muttered to Morag, embarrassed.  "Not wizard clothes anyway."

"Aim for something simple," she advised.  "It's day wear anyhow, Harry."

"If my grandfather liked black waistcoats, perhaps I should too …."

"Henry wore mourning for much of his life," Sirius told him.  "There's no reason for you to wear it, and brows might be raised if you do."

"It's only a waistcoat," Remus objected.  "He won't be wearing black anywhere else."

"Mr. James favoured a black and green stripe for his last formal set," the tailor suggested. 

"Perhaps if it was a very fine stripe," Morag said.  "Green with a fine black and gold stripe and a black silk reverse."

"Too much green," Sirius objected.  "Reverse it – black with a fine green and gold stripe."

The tailor found several swatches in the samples book and laid them against a sample of the robe cloth.

"Okay, black with the green and gold stripe," Harry decided, and everyone looked pleased.

Then the head outfitter returned, bearing a small black velvet box with the shop's discreet logo stamped on the lid in silver.  It was presented to Harry and a pair of cufflinks were revealed; tiny golden stags.

"My patronus," he said, surprised, "and Dad's animagus form."

"And your family's crest," Sirius added, smiling.

"Would you like them, Harry?" Morag asked, and at his nod they were whisked away to be packaged up.

"Now the cloth for the robe, Sir," the tailor prompted and the fuss started all over again.

It seemed to take hours, but eventually the cloth and style was decided upon, a crude pattern made up, tried on and adjusted, and the finishing touches agreed.  Harry got his first proper look at his family crest, with the motto _Fides et Fortitudo Vincerunt_ (Faith and Fortitude Conquer).  Then he was fitted for a pair of very glossy black formal shoes and after that a milliner appeared, marshalling a small team of elves who carefully carried boxes and boxes of hats to be tried on. 

Finally arrangements were made for the clothes to be made up and delivered, Morag set the official seal of the Potter Family Trustees against the account book, and they were all bowed into the Floo.

Morag parted with them in Hogsmeade, declaring her need to buy a new hat for Harry's birthday party.  She kissed each of them on the cheek before dashing off into the village and the three men headed back up to the school.

Everything had happened at such high speed that Harry felt a little like he'd been hit repeatedly over the head with a large book, and he was astonished to discover that they'd missed lunch and it was now rapidly approaching an early teatime instead.  Fortunately, the kitchen-elves had noticed their absence and a sturdy, if late, lunch was waiting for them in the guest suite.

He was on his fifth chicken and bacon sandwich before he was ready to ask about the morning's expedition.  Sirius was watching him with bemused hilarity.

"You'll never eat your dinner," he remarked.

Harry paused.  "Why not?"

Remus gave his partner a nudge.  "He's seventeen, idiot.  I'm surprised you can even ask, when I think of the mountains of food you and James used to pinch from the kitchens."

"It's not fair," Sirius grumbled.

"True.  It's a tragedy that a grown man can't stuff himself like a pregnant hippogriff whenever he feels like it."

Harry stopped munching and stared at his sandwich. 

"I'm not getting like Dudley, am I?" he asked.

"You're winding us up, right?" Sirius said, looking rather appalled.  "Anyone less like Dudley Dursley I've yet to meet!"

"I don't ever want to be like Dudley."

"Now see what you've done!" Remus scolded Sirius.  He turned to Harry.  "Harry, if you lived for two hundred years and ate like a dragon every day, you'd still never be like Dudley.  You've only got a hollow leg at the moment because of all the extra lessons.  Using magic at full strength takes as much energy as playing a rough game of Quidditch, you know.  Besides," he added, with a quick smile, "you know Maffy thinks you need feeding up."

Harry cheered up and finished his sandwich.

"If I've been working really hard all summer, I reckon I'll be miles ahead of everyone else in September, seeing as it usually takes a while to get used to your wand and remember everything again," he remarked, adding with a distinctly Slytherin satisfaction, "It'll make Granger look a bit green."

"You're going back to school in September then?" Sirius asked before he could stop himself.

"Maybe," Harry said casually.  "If nothing better comes up."

Remus trod on Sirius's foot before he could say anything else.

"You're not keen on Hermione, are you?" he said, smiling slightly as he cut up a sponge cake.

"She's nosy and interfering," Harry said.

"She means well."

Harry didn't dignify this with a response.  Instead, he asked, "Was Miss MacDuff really my mum's best friend?"

"Lord, yes - thick as thieves from first year onwards," Sirius replied, taking the hint.  "Much to your dad's aggravation later on."

"Mo was there when you were born," Remus added.  "It's one of the reasons why she's one of your trustees - that and the fact that she's a lawyer.  She's been the legal representative for Clan MacDuff for ten years."

"The wizard clan, not the Muggles," Sirius put in, "although there are definite links.  The Scottish wizard clans have always had closer links to Muggles than most communities in Europe.  Mo's cousin Donald is the Chief of Clan MacDuff."

Harry digested this.  "So she didn't have a problem with Mum being Muggleborn."

"No, but she wouldn't anyway.  Mo's a fine witch, but her father was a squib and her mother had so little magic that she never went to Hogwarts, " Sirius replied.  "She took a fair bit of stick for that herself, so she wasn't about to be fussy in her friends.  Not that she would anyway.  The MacDuffs are good people."

"What about my other trustee?" Harry asked after a moment.  "Not Professor Dumbledore.  Mr. … Pettifer?"

Remus raised his brows.  "You have a good memory!" he remarked.  "Petuarius Pettifer.  He was your grandfather's closest friend - you'll meet him on Thursday."

"The Pettifers are a First Family," Sirius said, taking over.  "Petuarius is the _paterfamilias_ and he's a old man now.  He handed most of the family business over to his eldest son shortly after your grandfather died and retired to the family's country estate, where he spends most of his time cataloguing the library, I'm told.  He's a grand old chap in the traditional style, was a fearsome duellist when he was younger, and he - " Sirius hesitated for a moment.  "I don't know him very well, because we were from different generations and our families never quite moved in the same circles, but from what I remember of him I'd say that he's a man much in the same style as your grandfather.  They were two men made in the same mould."

Harry looked interested.  "So what was my grandfather like?"  When Sirius and Remus hesitated, looking at each other, he tensed slightly.  "You don't have to - "

"No!  No, it's fine," Sirius said quickly.  "It's just - trying to describe Henry is …."  He shook his head.  "We can tell you things about him, Harry, but they could never fully convey the kind of man he was.  He was one of the best men I ever met and - I wish to God he'd been my father, that's all."

"He was a diplomat, Harry," Remus said.  "When we were at Grimmauld Place at the beginning of the summer, do you remember Kingsley Shacklebolt telling you that Henry Potter's name would open doors for you across Europe?  That was why.  He was a tremendously well-respected man, not only in the British Isles, but right across Europe and beyond.  I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that some of our Ministry's problems in dealing with their international colleagues now stem from the fact that lesser men tried to do Henry's work and failed miserably through a lack of his talent."

"He would have made a fantastic Minister," Sirius remarked.  "But historically the Potters, like the Dumbledores, have been the power _behind_ the throne and I think Henry felt that his gifts lay in other areas.  Perhaps he was right.  But we didn't have problems like this before Fudge managed to trip over his feet and fall into the Minister's seat.  Millicent Bagnold was a good Minister and even my father respected Sylvester Bones before her.  But by the time all the trouble started, Henry was a very old man and there was a limit to what he could do.  He died only a matter of weeks after you were born."

"You would have loved him," Remus told Harry, smiling slightly.  "It was never any mystery where James got his sense of humour from - Henry had a real imp of mischief in him.  It's a terrible tragedy that you lost not only your parents but your grandparents as well, Harry, because they were all marvellous people - your Muggle grandparents included."

Sirius grinned.  "Your Grandfather Evans and Henry were kindred spirits.  They both had James's measure, that's for sure, and James knew it.  He'd pull the wool over anyone and everyone's eyes - but not his own parents and not Lily's father.  He even had Mrs. Evans wrapped around his finger within a month but he knew when to watch his step with Mr. Evans.  So did I actually," he added ruefully, making Remus grin.

"He was no fool," he agreed.

"He would just _look_ at us …."

"And Lily definitely inherited that ability, I remember her giving James the Evans Stare of Doom on several occasions – "

"Even _before_ they got together. In fact, particularly before."

Sirius clearly would have liked to expand upon this theme, but Remus noticed Harry's sudden restlessness and decided it was better to call a halt to the reminiscences before the situation became awkward.

"This is all very interesting, but we have more important things to discuss at the moment.  Thursday will be a seriously busy day."

Sirius took the hint – not happily, but he did take it.

"Thursday – yes.  First of all, Harry, given everything else that's going to happen on the day, it was impossible to book a slot for you to take your Apparition exam, so I've left it open and we can drop by the office some time next week, when we get a spare hour.  It might be better that way anyway, given that all too many people know when your birthday is."

"It'll give you a chance to go over the notes from your classes," Remus remarked, and Harry nodded, accepting the delay with surprising docility.

"As for your birthday," Sirius continued, "there's the formalities to be dealt with and they're likely to take all day.  Remus and I were thinking we'd hold a proper party for you a bit later, perhaps when Ron gets back from Egypt.  We could invite some other people from school, what do you think?"

"Okay."  That would be something to look forward to, although Harry had a hard time thinking of anyone he would really want to invite.  Tony Goldstein and Blaise, maybe.  Maybe.

"Unfortunately, Thursday will be a bit of a three-ring circus," Remus remarked, and he made a face.  "As you're the head of your family, Harry – " Harry snorted, making both men grin a little, "we had to invite some rather odd characters to come and witness your majority."

Harry was interested.  "So long as it's not the Malfoys."

"I doubt the Malfoys could pass the family wards," Sirius said dryly.  "I'm afraid you'll have to put up with the Bellecoeur contingent, though, and a few other crusty First Family types.  Also the Bishop of Avebury, the head of the London branch of Gringotts, and Mervyn Blight, the head of Blight, Blunt and Skinnards, who are your family's solicitors."

"Is this going to be really formal?" Harry asked, feeling a niggle of anxiety beginning to creep up on him.

"I'm afraid so.  Everything will have to be just so and you'll need your company manners.  Many of the people attending either openly or privately opposed James marrying your mother and they'll be looking to see just how much of a Potter you really are.  And when they've made that judgement, they'll go away and pass it on to all the people we _didn't_ invite."

This was both frightening and infuriating to Harry. 

"What happens if I decide not to turn up?" he demanded.

Sirius shrugged, burying his own anxiety under a casual exterior.  "I imagine they'll say that they expected no better from the son of a Mudblood.  It's not their opinion I would worry about in that case, though.  It's the fact that if you don't make an appearance you won't inherit that bothers me."

The teenager's brows went up.  "Really?  Then won't it be worth someone's while to make sure I don't turn up?"

"There's that as well," Sirius agreed rather grimly.  "But we can do something about that."

"Oh.  Well, I'm going to turn up," Harry told him, "just in case you were wondering."

A slow smile crossed his godfather's face. 

"Good," he said.  "Remus has promised to make that sausage casserole you like for dinner on Thursday evening and it would be a pity to waste it."

Harry grinned.

"In the meantime," Remus said mildly, "Sirius has one or two other important duties to discuss with you, the first being the matter of correct dress for a gentleman wizard at the formal acknowledgement of his magical majority."

"Robes are robes," Harry said, puzzled.  "And I know how to button up a waistcoat and use cufflinks."

"But you don't wear cravats every day and since your father isn't here to do it, the honour of teaching you to tie a credible cravat falls to me," Sirius told him.

"Can't I just wear a tie?"

"Sorry; no.  Maffy will make sure everything else is straight when you get dressed, but you need to be able to tie your own cravat because it's damn near impossible for someone else to do it for you and people like Quintus Criggle will be looking for details like that.  In fact, we should get started on it now because it'll probably take until dinner for you to get the hang of it."

"I'm not stupid," Harry said, rather affronted.

"It might be better if you were," Sirius said humorously.  "I've always had a theory that intelligence gets in the way of tying a decent cravat.  How else could men like Godwin Goyle manage to tie a perfect Waterfall?"

"It would certainly explain some of the diabolical knots you and James came up with when we were young," Remus deadpanned.

Harry couldn't decide if that was an insult or not.

"Okay, so I learn to tie a cravat.  What else?"

There was a pause.  Remus sat back, studying his teacup, and Sirius suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

"Um … it's the decision of the Wizengamot, via the Court of Inheritances, that I _wasn't_ formally disinherited," he said after a moment.  "Ergo, I am the rightful heir of the most noble and ancient House of Black and I stand as _paterfamilias_ to all acknowledged descendents of the House of Black.  As a result all properties, monies and holdings held in common by the family, and directly by the previous _paterfamilias_ , are my property and must be returned to me forthwith."

"You must have memorised that document," Remus murmured.

Harry looked from one to the other of them.

"So you got your money back," he said, confused.  "That's good, isn't it?  So why do you look like someone put a hedgehog on your chair?"

"The money part is good," Sirius said, even more uncomfortable.  "It's the other bit, exhorting me to do my duty as head of the family.  The role of _paterfamilias_ comes with a whole slew of rights, duties and responsibilities."

Harry's face lit up.  "Does that mean you can disinherit Bellatrix Lestrange now? And Narcissa Malfoy?"

The two men blinked and looked at each other.

"Actually," Sirius said slowly, "I wasn't getting at that, but … yes, I suppose it does.  Well, not Narcissa – I'd have a bit of trouble justifying it at the moment – but certainly I can disinherit Bellatrix.  Interesting idea."

"And not entirely relevant at the moment," Remus reminded him pointedly.

"No, you're right."  Sirius paused to rub his face.  "Is it too early for firewhiskey?"

"Yes.  Get on with it, Padfoot.  It won't get any easier by putting it off."

Harry's face fell.  "There's more?"

"'Fraid so," Sirius said unhappily.  "I've been formally notified by the Court that they expect me to continue the family name."

Harry's brows went up.  "Oh.  Well, you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Yes … but this is bit different.  They made it a condition of my reinstatement as the heir and I'm expected to fulfill that duty within two years or else."

The teenager stared.  "Or else what?  They can't disinherit you again, can they?"

"No, but they can designate an heir for Sirius arbitrarily," Remus said.  "Someone closely related, whoever that might be.  Generally, the Wizengamot follows the Roman custom of looking at male heirs first, but it's possible for a woman to inherit if she isn't already married to the _paterfamilias_ of another First Family, so under the circumstances they would probably consider Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy eligible, and Andromeda Tonks at a pinch."

"The Malfoys have the best hope," Sirius said.  "Andromeda married a Muggleborn and has a daughter who was never acknowledged as a Black, and Snape's related through his mother being my father's sister.  They'll always go for the male line and male heirs by preference, and of course Lucius has the money to buy a bit of extra favour if the issue's in doubt."

"But Draco's his own family's only heir, isn't he?  Can he inherit a second family name?" Harry asked.

"He's the only Malfoy heir _at the moment_ ," Sirius said, smiling a little twistedly.  "Unless one of them is infertile, there's no reason why Narcissa and Lucius shouldn't crank out another baby – and believe me, they'll be trying.  If Cissy can produce a second son, or even a daughter, that child has the best chance of anyone of becoming my heir, unless I produce one myself."

There was another pause.  Harry's eyes went to Remus.

"Does that mean you have to marry someone else?" he asked, dismayed.

Remus smiled at him, and Sirius shook his head sharply. 

"No!  No, thank God, although I'm sure they'd prefer that.  There's another route – I can hire a suitable lady as a surrogate under a special contract.  It's not a common solution but more than one First Family has been saved by it in the past."

Harry looked at them curiously.  "Is it that common for wizards to be gay, then?"

"That wasn't what Sirius meant," Remus said calmly.  "It's no more common for wizards to be homosexual than it is for Muggles, Harry.  There is, however, a slightly higher instance of infertility in the First Families, and when a woman can't conceive – or conceives but can't carry a child to term – her husband can't just divorce her and marry again.  That's one of the benefits of living in a society where, broadly speaking, women have had equal rights to men throughout history."

"Which isn't to say that our society can't be misogynistic," Sirius remarked, mildly amused by the thought.  "It's just a thousand times more risky.  Try telling someone like Hermione Granger that her place in life is being barefoot and pregnant and see what happens to you."

"So why would any witch want to be a surrogate?" Harry asked curiously.

"Good question," his godfather admitted.  "I asked the same thing, but the family solicitors didn't seem to think there would be a problem finding one.  She will be extremely well-paid after all, and even though she won't have anything to do with the kid's upbringing, her name will be on the birth certificate and so on.  That sort of thing matters to some wizard families."

Harry couldn't decide how he felt about this arrangement.  It was fraught with questions, many of them ethical ones that he didn't feel remotely equipped to deal with.  The idea of an anonymous woman effectively selling her body to produce a child which she would hand over to someone else to raise was rather distasteful.  The idea of Sirius hiring someone to produce a child for him so that he could keep his inheritance was distasteful.  On the other hand, the whole situation was awkward to say the least.  Sirius was, after all, effectively married and his relationship with Remus was exclusive, which narrowed down the options somewhat. 

It was obvious to Harry that this was not a situation his godfather felt happy about either.  He had been cornered by the restrictions of the society they lived in, and while one might argue that giving in on this issue just to retain control of wealth and position was equally distasteful, the truth was considerably more complicated.  After all, even Harry could see that giving it all up, while very noble, wouldn't do any of them much good in the long run, least of all Sirius.  But by taking up his position amongst the First Families, Sirius might just be able to do some good instead. 

The biggest question on Harry's mind, however, was how Remus felt about all of this.  When he looked enquiringly at him, the other man smiled rather wryly.

"No, I don't like it," he said quietly.  "But what can I do?"

"We've already had this conversation," Sirius said restlessly.

"I know we have, but I'm not about to make the decision for you, Padfoot.  I've thought about it a lot ever since your re-trial, in any case, and you know I've always been of the opinion that this is the right way forward for you.  The fact that I personally don't like it is nothing to the purpose.  No one can have it all their own way in life; you taking up your position as _paterfamilias_ and your seat on the Wizengamot is important, not just to us but to a lot of other people, including Harry here, and the fact that in order to do it you have to have an heir is something I just have to deal with.  I'm lucky in a great many other ways, after all.  We _will_ still be together.  They could have demanded that you put me aside and marry; I'm astonished that they didn't."

"I'd have willingly handed it all over to the Malfoy brat first," Sirius said, with a quiet intensity that made Harry shift uncomfortably in his seat.

This was suddenly a deeply personal conversation and he wasn't sure he wanted to witness it.  It wasn't so much what Sirius had said as the way he said it, not quite looking at Remus but all his attention clearly focussed upon him.  Not for the first time Harry wondered how on earth he could have missed their relationship for so long – except that he almost never saw this kind of thing going on between them.  Clearly it was something so personal that they normally allowed no one else to see it.

"Well, you won't have to," Remus said calmly, and he suddenly raised his eyes to meet Harry's.  He smiled and said in a more normal tone, "And in case you hadn't noticed, it's four o'clock.  If you're intending to teach Harry to tie a cravat before dinner, you'd better get on with it."


	4. Chapter 4

31st July 1980

 

"Henry, won't you come and sit down for a while?  You've been pacing around all morning."

Had it been anyone but his old friend, Henry Potter might have said something uncharacteristically sharp.  But Petuarius Pettifer was neither patronising nor solicitous; he was merely quiet and concerned.  He was not the only man in the room to know what fears plagued Henry's mind, but he was the only one – with the possible exception of Albus Dumbledore – to give decent weight to them.  Henry glanced around, scanning the gathered First Family representatives, and saw Dumbledore standing before the fireplace.  He was holding forth on some odd matter of the kind he often rambled about and, not so accidentally, keeping the group occupied and their attention away from their host.

There was Inigo Lestrange, not a man Henry wanted under his roof at any time but an unavoidable presence.  With him stood the Under-Minister, Cornelius Fudge – a blundering fool, but not the worst example ever to grace the Ministry.  To one side sat fierce old Humilis Bellecoeur, with bones like knitting needles and a face as sour as his temper; next to his chair, listening with apparent good-humour to his gripes, was young Sirius Black – the only Black who would deign to attend today, and at that a disgraced one, but Henry preferred him to the greater pack of his relatives.  There was no sign of either Remus Lupin or Peter Pettigrew, but he supposed they would appear soon enough; it would be unheard of for them not to be here today of all days.  Criggle-the-younger was slipping something from a hip-flask into his tea when he thought no one was looking, while Amelia Bones and Henry's sister-in-law from his first marriage, Gladys Wincher, discussed educational reforms in low voices.  Antonio Zabini, having finished his tea, was studying the design on the delicate porcelain cup and saucer while offering half an ear to the excited remarks of Daedalus Diggle.

No Blacks.  No Malfoys.  No Notts.  Henry supposed he should be grateful, but instead all he felt was trapped by this ghoulish group, all gathered together in his morning room like guests at a wake.  But he was the only one present wearing mourning, and the irony was not lost on him.

"There has been no word to suggest anything can be amiss, has there?"  Pettifer's voice was pitched for Henry alone.

"No.  No word."

"It seems a long time, but this is a first baby …."

"How do I find words if all is _not_ well?"

Pettifer paused, his eyes searching Henry's face.  "Henry?"

Henry stared into his eyes for one long, bleak moment.  "What shall I say, Petuarius?  How do I even face James and that dear, sweet girl if – if something should be amiss?  What do I say to my son if I have brought him into this world and raised him, only for him to suffer the – the same grief as I suffered?  How can I possibly look him in the eyes?"

"He knew the risk, Henry – "

"Words.  All words."  Henry turned away, to stare out of the window and across the neatly kept garden beyond.  "He never knew his brothers.  I – I am a coward.  I couldn't show him the pictures, their little faces ….  They could never be real to him.  All words.  I don't think he ever realised how careful we were of him, our fears when he fell from his first broomstick or when we put him onto the train to school every year.  I tried to tell Lily, but who knows if she really understood what it might mean for them?  These things don't happen in her world.  What shall I say to her if it happens to her now?"

"Henry …." Pettifer said helplessly.  "Tormenting yourself can't possibly help.  The same questions would have arisen no matter whom James married.  At least with this girl you know beyond doubt that there is no connection to your family."

"The fault is in my blood, Petuarius."

"The fault is with generations of fools who have insisted on marrying only among their own kind, you've said it yourself – "

"Cold comfort," Henry said.  "Forgive me, old friend, I – I feel the need for solitude."

Muttering apologies to the gathering, he retreated to his study.

 

xXx

 

In the drawer of his desk in the study was an odd little object, a tree of six small circular picture frames.  Each one contained a photograph of a child; two babies in cradles, and four little boys ranging from toddlers barely able to stand on their own feet to one little fellow in a sailor suit, riding a tricycle.  Some of the pictures were old, sepia-tinted photographs from an earlier age, while others were more recent, as late as the 1950s.

Henry carefully turned the picture-tree over and each little polished wooden frame was inscribed with a name and dates on the reverse – Henry, Thomas, Stephen, Christian, Anthony and Raphael.  These were the sons he had lost before James was born; four of them born to his first wife Amelia, who had died giving birth to little Anthony, and the others to his second wife Elvira.  When he turned the pictures right side up again, the little boy on the tricycle – that was Stephen with his sticking-up dark hair and tiny round glasses, and he'd barely been five when the picture was taken – waved to him happily, unaware of the fate that would befall him a mere two weeks later.

Henry touched the glass with light fingertips, swallowing his grief with the iron resolve of a lifetime.  He had loved them all, even the poor little souls who had never drawn breath.  He loved them as he loved James, in spite of a gulf of years between the two of them wide enough to swallow two generations.

He had braced himself when James was born, expecting the worst but praying, as always, for the best.  He and Elvira had been lucky on that one, final occasion; in spite of some childhood frailties James had somehow grown up hail and strong, as though nothing had ever been amiss with him or his siblings.  It had not occurred to Henry until much later that he would have to brace himself once more when James married.  James had lived, but sons of First Families commonly socialised only with the daughters of other First Families, leading inevitably to more intermarriages.  It had never occurred to Henry that his son might choose to flout all convention and attach himself to a Muggleborn girl.

It could only be a good thing – fresh blood injected into a social group long in need of it – but the question was, would it be enough?  There was only one way to find out and to Henry's mind it was a cruel and expensive path to tread.  His own grief would be nothing compared to his son and daughter-in-law's if the baby carried the family curse.

Henry carefully returned the picture tree to his drawer and shut it away.  He got to his feet and went to stand in the window embrasure, staring out over the garden once more, and he was still standing there nearly an hour later when someone tapped on the door lightly.  He sighed.  There was never a respite, a lesson he should have learned by now.

"Come in," he called.

He heard the door open but it wasn't until he caught sight of a familiar reflection in the window that he turned around.  His healer, a middle-aged wizard by the name of Nicholas Pinker, was standing just inside the door. 

"Nicholas?" he asked, and he was angry to hear his voice waver.  Once his career had depended upon his ability to keep his emotions in check.

"Fretting yourself into the family tomb?"  Pinker was a plain-spoken man of the old school.  "I thought as much when I first arrived here.  Well, you can calm down now.  James is coming downstairs in a moment, but he asked me to speak to you first.  He thought you might be worrying unnecessarily."

"James …. "  Henry swallowed.  "Nicholas, what – "

"It's a boy," the healer told him baldly.

"A son?"  Such rush of feelings at those words; too many to count.  "Nicholas, please tell me at once – is he - ?"

" _Relax_ , you old fool!  He's the healthiest, liveliest baby I've seen delivered to any of the First Families in the past twenty years or more.  There's not a hint of the old trouble in him."

For a moment Henry thought he might have to sit down, the relief was so intense.

"Thank God!"

"Thank that young woman your son had the common sense to marry," Pinker retorted.  He crossed the room and took Henry's wrist, counting his pulse.  "What have I told you about exciting yourself like this?"

"I listened to every word, my friend."  Now that it was all over – or worst of it at any rate, for there was always _more_ – relief almost made him light-headed.  "A boy!  A healthy boy!"

"Aye, and now the poor little scrap has to be subjected to that fool custom you top-drawer types like to put your newborns through!  Well, he's feisty enough to carry it off.  Be sure to name him _Sonorous_ , though – his little lungs gave the silencing charms a run for their money."

"And my daughter-in-law?"  Henry wasn't _quite_ light-headed enough to forget the essentials.

"She's fine as well.  Strong as a hippogriff, that one."  Pinker smiled austerely.  "Threw your son out of the room three times, and no need of a wand to do it!"

"Excellent."  Henry straightened up his robe.  "We had best be about it then, the formalities must be taken care of – _Drooby!_ "

The chief of the Potter family's house-elves appeared out of thin air. 

"Master?"  He was quivering with excitement.  "We is all wishing the Master to know that we is all as happy for you and Master James as we never was before, Master."

"Thank you, Drooby.  Perhaps you would ask the other elves – not Maffy, she should stay with Mistress Lily, but all the others – to come to the Morning Room for a few minutes."

"Yes, Master."  Drooby bowed deeply and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Henry looked at the healer.  "Well, Nicholas – let us go forth and confound my enemies."

"That bad?" Pinker asked wryly.

"I believe the majority have come to offer their condolences," Henry replied.  He decided not to mention that he had been almost as sure of the outcome himself a bare fifteen minutes earlier.

 

xXx

 

Something had already alerted everyone when Henry returned to the Morning Room.  No word or signal was necessary – some of them had been through this time-honoured ritual only the day before at the Longbottom house.  Everyone stood up and gathered into groups well away from the door, the most senior of them – Dumbledore, Pettifer, Lestrange, Bellecoeur etc. – joining Henry himself by the window.  They all turned their backs to the door and pretended to talk, while Drooby whisked inside and placed a small table with a cushion on it in the middle of the room.  The other house-elves fidgeted nervously against the far wall as they waited to greet the latest member of the family they were bound to.

Some families still followed the extreme version of this custom, where the father would present the newborn to his _paterfamilias_ by placing the baby naked on the threshold of the house.  Henry thought them irredeemable fools for it; the Potters had abandoned that custom generations ago.  Children were too precious to be placed at risk of exposure less than an hour after their emergence from the womb, and all for the sake of _custom_.  Even this modified ritual rankled with him sometimes.  Pity the poor child whose _paterfamilias_ was drink-addled, insane or even merely 'whimsical'!  Terrible things had been and still were being done in the name of this autocratic ritual, which could leave a child nameless and homeless if the _paterfamilias_ chose.

Henry heard the door open behind them and it took all of his willpower not to turn around immediately.  Having gone through this ritual himself many times before – from both sides, first with his own father and then receiving the child from the midwife later – he knew that James would approach the table and place the baby onto the cushion, then take a step back.

A rustle, followed by the high-pitched squeaks of an outraged newborn.  Then James politely cleared his throat and the assembled company performed the exaggerated pantomime of looking around oh-so-casually, as though surprised to see him there.

James had started out that morning wearing Muggle-style jeans and a Montrose Magpies shirt; he was still wearing them, apparently, for the collar of the shirt was sticking out of the neck of his formal robe.  He looked exhausted and shell-shocked and his hair was standing on end – not that this last was anything unusual.  On the cushion in front of him squirmed the newest Potter, wrapped loosely in the family's laced-edged heirloom shawl.  He had a cap of dark hair and the face beneath it was red and scrunched up.  Henry knew that expression well.  Any moment now, the baby would express his rage at this unwelcome environment by screaming like a banshee.

"Sir," James said wearily.  "I give you my son.  I beg you to recognise him."

Traditional words, but the literal meaning of them was frightening.  In truth every parent of the First Families surrendered ownership of their children to the _paterfamilias_.  It was a law that applied uniquely to their strata of society.  Should Henry acknowledge this little boy now, the child would henceforth be under _his_ ultimate control until his seventeenth birthday at least, or for as long as he made his residence in the family home, and if Henry chose he could overrule James in anything and everything relating to the child's life and upbringing, until he himself died and James took his place as _paterfamilias_.

"Is the child fit to rear?"  That was Pettifer, asking another traditional question, one generally asked by a respected friend of the family rather than the head of the family himself.

"He is," Nicholas Pinker replied.  "I attended his birth – he is the rightful son of James Potter's lawful wife, and he is fit and strong and healthy."

As recently as the early seventeenth century, a negative answer to this question would have meant Pettifer taking the child and exposing it somewhere – a moor or remote hillside.  Wizard folklore included numerous stories of such children being found and raised by Muggles, only to wreak terrible revenge on their uncaring magical families later.  Or of them becoming witchfinders or inquisitioners ….  These days, of course, not sickness or weakness but less than pure blood could lead to rejection of a child.  The unfortunate infants were invariably abandoned to Muggle orphanages, and who knew what end they came to?

But not this boy.

Henry stepped forward, his eyes fixed on the small angry face, the flailing fists.  He would need every ounce of that temper as he grew up; Henry knew his own society too well not to know what this little 'half-blood' grandson of his would face from his peers.  But he was strong and healthy and – he was a Potter.

Henry picked him up, which in terms of custom _and_ law was the bare minimum he was obliged to do in order to recognise this child as a rightful member of his family.  He heard some soft, disgruntled muttering from a few of the gathered worthies behind him, but ignored it.  They had chosen to come in response to his summons, and by law that made them witnesses.  Had they really thought that he of all people would reject his grandson on account of his _blood?_   The baby protested the movement, a mere experimental wail and surely nothing compared to what he was capable of if he chose, but Henry soothed him easily and delighted in the way the small face turned to him at once in response to his voice.

"What shall you call him?" he asked James, and for the first time his son smiled.  He looked a little bit relieved, although that was understandable in this company and given the importance of the moment.

"Henry.  Henry Potter." 

Henry blinked and swallowed for a moment.  It was a traditional family name, of course; he himself was something like the eighth or ninth Potter to bear the name, but even so ….

"Not Xenophon after all?" he managed, and was pleased to inject just a _tiny_ note of disappointment into his tone.  The list of names that had been put forward over the past few months had been extensive and outrageous, but Xenophon had been James's favourite nickname for Lily's 'bump'.

"Maybe for the next one," James said, grinning now.

"I'll remind you of that."  Henry squared his shoulders and turned to face his gathered peers.  "Ladies and gentlemen, my family and I thank you for attending us at this very happy moment.  I am proud to present to you my grandson, Henry Potter.  He is the undoubted son of my son James and his lawful wife Lily, and I hereby acknowledge him to be the lawful heir of my lawful heir, with all the attendant rights and privileges and responsibilities that birthright bestows."

With those words he guaranteed his grandson's right to one day inherit not only the family name, but the entire family fortune, a seat on the Wizengamot, and the title of _paterfamilias_ of the Noble House of Potter.  And there was only one response any of the gathered worthies there that day could give, regardless of their personal feelings:

"Witnessed!"

 

xXx

 

Much later, after James had returned the baby to Lily and most of the guests had departed, Petuarius Pettifer went looking for Henry Potter.  He found him in the study once more, surrounded at his desk by neatly secured scrolls of parchment and staring at a blank sheet on the blotter before him.

He looked up when Pettifer entered the room and smiled distractedly.  He looked grey and exhausted, and yet somehow energised as well.

"The very person I most wished to see," he said.

"I am at your service as always, Henry, but shouldn't you rest now?  It grows late – I was about to leave myself."

"I've been writing letters," Henry said, barely listening.  "Must speak with Mervyn Blight in the morning – and Father Ignatius at Holy Bones.  Get the boy properly Christened and tie up all the paperwork as it should be done.  I'll not have any of them take it all away from him if anything should happen …."

Pettifer frowned.  "What could happen to cause that?"

"One never knows.  If you listen to Dumbledore – and I'm not fool enough to ignore him – then we're all one step from the edge of disaster.  That creature Voldemort and his followers have raised up a mare's nest of the like we never saw even when Grindelwald was stretching his hand across Europe.  I fear for the Wizengamot and the Ministry if this continues, Petuarius.  I really do."

"What does James say?  He's an Auror, after all.  He must know more than is generally spoken of."

Henry paused and Pettifer saw a grim shadow cross his friend's face for a moment. 

"James … is very cautious in what he says," he said finally.  "There is a great deal more afoot than he or even Dumbledore will tell me.  They think I'm old and the sad truth is they are right.  I'm old and I'm failing, my friend."

"Henry – "

"No, Petuarius.  I looked at that little scrap of life today and thought …."  Henry stopped.  He picked up his quill and plucked at the feather restlessly.  "Never mind.  I'll see it all sewn up good and tight for him, come what may.  May I call upon your services in these matters?"

"Always," Pettifer said stoutly. 

"Thank you."  Henry hesitated, then said, "There is one other thing I would ask of you …."

 

xXx 

 

31st July 1997

 

The enormous master bedroom at The Rose House was very imposing when Maffy shooed Harry inside, but he understood at once why she had taken him there.  His new clothes were laid out neatly across the counterpane of the vast four-poster bed, and a full-length tilt-and-turn mirror was standing at exactly the right angle to the window for his use.

The morning had been a rush in order to get to The Rose House on time, but Remus had been his usual efficient self, even if Harry had been dragging his feet a bit and Sirius had been running around like the madman much of the wizarding world thought him to be.  Harry had just over an hour to get dressed and he had Maffy to help him, although he suspected that her main role was to fuss affectionately, bully him into bathing for the second time that morning, and check that he didn't have the back of his robes accidentally tucked into his underpants or anything embarrassing like that.

The wash he took was a sketchy one, largely because Harry wanted to get the bulk of his new clothes on as fast as he feasibly could.  The most nightmarish part of the operation would be tying his cravat, and if he tried to hurry it he knew it would end in disaster.  Underwear, socks, shirt, trousers, shoes, waistcoat ….  Harry was grateful for Maffy's presence when he managed to fumble and drop his cufflinks three times in a row.  It would be typical if they turned out to be the most difficult part of the business after all.

Finally, he was ready to try tying the cravat.  Harry eyed the crisp pile of white muslin with distrust; there had to be upwards of a dozen there.  He had laughed incredulously when Sirius told him that it was nothing to ruin five or six cravats in quick succession before achieving a respectable result.  A failure had to be discarded at once, for the muslin was starched in such a way that any unintentional creases stood out like a fresh bloodstain.  After his first half-dozen attempts, he'd lost any vestiges of a sense of humour about it.

Maffy laid the first one delicately across his palms.  They were a _foot wide_ , but also very finely woven.  The first couple of folds, to reduce the width by two thirds, were crucial.  Harry thought he'd got that part right, but the moment he draped the cloth around his neck he could see that he'd miscalculated.  He badly wanted to swear but didn't want to upset Maffy, so he gritted his teeth instead as he tossed the cravat aside and started again.

Seven cravats later, he squinted down his nose at himself in the mirror as he carefully teased out the folds of the bow at the front.  He wasn't a hundred percent sure, but he _thought_ he might have finally done it ….  Unfortunately, Sirius would already be downstairs, greeting guests, and was consequently not available for an opinion.  Harry turned cautiously towards Maffy.

"Does that look right?"

He'd expected her to coo over him regardless of how bad his cravat looked, but it had been Maffy who pointed out flaws in two earlier efforts.  She inspected him critically now, peering at the folds of muslin front and back.

At length she nodded.  "This will do."  Harry let out a breath of relief.  "Now Master is standing still like a good boy and letting Maffy set his collar for him."

Harry was only too glad to let her turn down the points of his stiff collar for him.  Sirius had warned him of the need for care in this part of the operation as well, because one slip could result in ruination of the cravat –

"And if that happens, you'll have to change your shirt as well, because the collars are starched too stiffly to allow for mistakes."

"Someone badly needs to introduce wizards to the crew neck," Harry had grumbled in response.  "This is _insane_."

Maffy set his collar neatly, then told him to stand still while she fetched his robe.  She instructed him to hold his arms out at each side and the heavy robe was tenderly slipped into place.  Maffy fussed for a moment or two with the set of the shoulders and drape of the lapels, then whisked a small brush over Harry.  Finally she bade him stand still again while she straightened his hair, then she stepped back and Harry was left staring at a stranger in the long mirror.  A part of him was grateful that the set of the robes left him looking a little taller than usual, but otherwise he looked and felt entirely unlike himself, and he didn't like the feeling much.  Anything about him that might have looked even a little Muggle was gone, leaving behind someone who was all wizard – the kind of wizard, moreover, that Harry generally associated with everything he thought was wrong with the magical world.  He had never before particularly valued his Muggle blood, but it occurred to him now that his Muggle heritage was a more substantial element of his personality than he had previously realised.

 _Damn._   Harry suddenly realised that he _liked_ being different to other wizards, particularly the wizards who were supposed to be his social equals in this insanely undemocratic society.  This was not a particularly helpful revelation right at that moment, when he had to go downstairs and be polite to a gaggle of people who were most likely the worst examples of their type.

"Young Master's wand," Maffy said, suddenly recalling his attention.  Her voice was oddly muffled and when Harry turned around he saw that she was crying.

"What's the matter?" he asked, alarmed.

But she was beaming at him like a fond parent, in spite of the tears rolling down her wrinkled old face. 

"Little Master is so handsome!" she sniffled.  "So like his father and the old master.  Old Maffy is very, very proud of him today, yes she is."

"Thank you," Harry said helplessly.  "But you mustn't cry, Maffy."

"Old Maffy is not crying, young Master," she said firmly, pulling herself together.  She held out his wand and he took it, tucked it carefully inside his left sleeve.  "Young Master must hurry now and be sure to walk through the gallery."

"Why?" he asked, mystified, for that was one of the more indirect routes to the main stairs.

"Young Master is showing himself to his ancestors.  They is all wishing to see him on his special day!"

Harry wasn't sure he wanted to walk past all the staring family portraits in this get-up, but he knew better than to argue with Maffy when she used that tone. 

"Let's get it over with," he muttered, and bracing himself he headed for the door.

 

xXx

 

There were more pictures in the gallery than he remembered from his previous visit.

"Where did they all come from?" Harry demanded of Maffy in an appalled whisper, as he baulked at the entrance.

"They is telling Drooby to move them here.  They is wanting to see the young Master on his birthday!"  Maffy's tone became stern.  "Young Master is not to be dawdling now!  His guests is waiting!"

Harry could think of quite a few things he would rather have done than paraded himself in front of generations of Potters, all craning their necks to get a good look at him.  There was an air of restrained anticipation as he took the first reluctant step into the gallery, and his eye was caught at once by a Restoration Potter in a broad lace collar and velvet doublet.  For a moment the haughty eyes of Harry's many-times-great-grandfather Rupert Potter studied him, then a plumed hat was swept off as the cavalier-wizard bowed to him.

It might only be a portrait, but it would have been appallingly rude not to acknowledge the gesture.  Harry gave his ancestor a bow in return.

That set the tone.  Harry's progress was slow and rather stately as he had to pause every couple of steps to respond to bows and curtseys.  Stephen Potter – a Potter from the Middle Ages by the look of it, a rare second son who was dressed in the monkish robes of an Omnis Arcanum priest – offered him a silent blessing.  Mathilda Potter, dressed in an Empire line wedding dress of fine lace and accompanied by her husband Perseus Black (a raffish character who looked remarkably like Sirius), dipped him a low curtsey.  Nicholas Potter, the Tudor gentleman who had built The Rose House, swept him a bow.  Tobias Potter, Mathilda's father, actually dismounted from a restive-looking horse to greet Harry, although his wife remained in her side-saddle and only gave Harry a thoughtful look. 

The portrait nearest to the door on the far side of the gallery was of Harry's grandparents.  It was a large photograph, some two and a half feet square, and as with a lot of wizard photographs it was difficult to judge the date either by the materials (some wizard photographers still used the old-style sepia tones) or the clothes of the subjects, but Harry guessed that it might have been taken during the 1940s.  Henry Potter wore formal family colours for his wedding, not unlike the robes Harry himself wore now, although he noted the black mourning bands his grandfather wore even on such an important day.  Elvira Potter wore an Edwardian-style wedding dress of fine silk edged with lace, made close to the neck with big puffed sleeves and a narrow, boned bodice.

It was the first time Harry had seen a proper portrait of either of them, and he stopped before it, unsure if he should be as formal as he had been to the others.

His grandmother beamed.  She was a handsome lady, with wide dark eyes, a fine-boned face and dark hair piled into a knot on the back of her head.  Harry saw at once what Morag MacDuff had meant about her stubborn chin, though, and touched his own before he could stop himself.

His grandfather was … a Potter, without a doubt.  Harry was used to seeing the resemblance between himself and his father when he looked at photographs, but for the first time he could also see the differences.  His father had Elvira Potter's nose and eyes and while Harry could see the strong overall Potter family features, he realised that James actually looked a little less like Henry Potter than Harry himself did.  Harry had his grandfather's nose and there was something in the lines of his face ….

It took him a moment to realise that his grandfather was studying him with equal intensity, his eyes almost devouring him.

Harry flushed a little and made his bow to his grandparents.  His grandfather bowed back with solemn and deliberate grace; his grandmother nodded to him eagerly, clasping her hands in her lap as if to prevent herself reaching out to him.

"Young Master must make haste," Maffy said respectfully.  "The time …."

But Harry saw, as he reluctantly turned away from his grandparents' portrait, that she too paused to bow deeply to her former master and mistress.

Harry hadn't realised how tense he was until they left the gallery and Maffy urged him down the first awkward bend in the stairs.  He relaxed and let out a long breath – and consequently was not prepared for what awaited him on the small landing five steps below.  There was a space on the wall there which before had been taken up with a tiny table bearing a small statuette.  Today the table and sculpture were gone, and in their place was one final portrait.

James and Lily Potter's wedding photograph hung on that wall and from the look of things they had been waiting with some impatience for Harry to arrive.

It was a traditional style wedding portrait, although unlike any of the other photographs in the house this one was in colour and had been taken in the ballroom.  Harry's mother was seated, and looking very pretty despite a rather plainer style of dress than the other Potter ladies.  Her long auburn hair was loose underneath a lace veil held on by a band of flowers, and she was holding a long bouquet of Lilies of the Valley in her lap.

James Potter perched casually on the arm of her chair.  He, like his father, wore formal family colours just like Harry's, but minus the mourning bands and with a decidedly garish waistcoat.  He also wore a full top hat, set at a rakish angle on his untidy dark hair, and his lace cravat bore a complicated knot that Harry couldn't help thinking must have taken a couple of hours to tie successfully, if not longer.

There was a long, startled pause as the three of them came face to face.  Then James stood up in a hurry, pulling his top hat off.

It was like a punch to the gut for Harry, who for some reason had not been expecting to see them here.  Ever since seeing the memory in Professor Snape's Pensieve, he hadn't been able to look at pictures of his father without an acute and bitter pinch of anger in his stomach.  Yet looking at this portrait now, seeing his parents there on what was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, he was forced to acknowledge the grief that was never far behind the bitterness.  Whatever kind of people they had been, he should have grown up knowing them from something other than pictures and other people's memories. 

His mother's brilliant green eyes were fixed on him now and they were filling with tears; her bouquet slid unnoticed to the floor as her hands went to her mouth.

Everyone said that Lily Evans had been beautiful, sweet and fiercely intelligent.  Harry well remembered the girl in the Pensieve who had brought James Potter and his friends up short with her threats.  And yet, in spite of all that, a few years later she married the man James Potter became.  It was one of those riddles that Harry, for whom emotional conundrums were a severe trial, could not seem to solve.  It made no sense to him – unless the man in this portrait was somehow not the boy in the Pensieve, and Harry couldn't see how that could be.

But this was his father, and when James swept him a bow Harry once more gave him the same deep bow he'd bestowed upon his grandfather.  It was, after all, the very least of what they owed to each other.

 

xXx

 

Sirius and Remus were waiting at the head of the main staircase when Harry got there.  Sirius was dressed in the full aristocratic splendour of his family's livery of midnight blue and silver, while Remus wore a more everyday kind of formal robe, also in midnight blue, over a charcoal grey suit.  Harry noted with envy that he got to wear a bowtie.

Sirius's eyes went at once to Harry's cravat.

"The practice paid off by the looks of it," he remarked, smiling, as he turned Harry around to check the back of his neck.  "Not bad.  Not bad at all."

Maffy produced a clothes brush which she fussily whisked over Harry once more, then she combed his hair again, tutting.

"Excellent," Remus approved.  "Thank you, Maffy – you've done a fine job."

Maffy bowed to them all, gratified, then suddenly burst into tears and fled.

"Take that as a compliment," Sirius advised Harry.  "Now – are you ready?"

"I've bowed to just about everyone in my family, from a bloke in a breastplate to a little girl in ankle-length knickers.  I suppose I can put up with a few more people in fancy clothes," Harry said wryly.

"That's the spirit," Remus told him, amused.

"The Bishop of Avebury is here," Sirius said.  "I'll introduce you to him first.  Remember, drop to your left knee, kiss his ring, accept his blessing, then hop back up and take a step back.  Then you bow, preferably a full formal bow."

Harry grimaced, but nodded.  "Okay."

"As to the rest of them, it's a mixed bunch and I leave it up to you how formal you are with them.  But you're expected to kiss the ladies' hands.  I'll introduce you to everyone, including your solicitors – you only have to shake hands with them and the representatives from Gringotts – then there's a formal toast.  There's a small buffet where you'll be expected to make small talk with the ladies and anyone else who's prepared to tackle you in the presence of people like Madam Bellecoeur and my cousin Andromeda.  Then most of them will toddle off while you're having your photo taken for the _Daily Prophet_.  There's some paperwork to sign as well, in the presence of the solicitors and bankers."

"That takes us up to the end of next week," Harry grumbled.

Sirius grinned.  "Come on – the sooner we pacify them all, the sooner they go home and you can get on with the next four years of your life."

They walked down the stairs together and across the hallway.  Harry noticed – but guessed his godparents didn't – that at least four of the house-elves were hiding in corners and watching his progress with devoted eyes.   An elf called Pucksey was acting as footman and waiting for them just outside the morning room. He bowed deeply and waved the doors open to let them pass.

A low rumble of conversation inside the room stopped.  Harry found himself face to face with the most crusty collection of pureblood wizards and witches he had ever encountered and it took all of his resolution to walk inside.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Sirius said in a clear, carrying voice from just behind him, "I have the honour of presenting to you my ward, Henry Potter the Younger."

Everyone stood up.  Harry bowed; the wizards bowed in return and the witches dropped slight curtseys.  After a moment, the ladies resumed their seats but the men remained standing.  Sirius touched Harry's elbow, directing his attention to a figure draped in a rich black robe edged with arcane gold embroidery and wearing small, boxy black hat. 

"His Grace Drusus Incanto, Bishop of Avebury - your Grace, my ward - "

The bishop was a tall thin man in early middle age.  His face was smooth and austere and his grey eyes penetrating as he stepped forward and stretched out his hand to Harry.  Harry, biting the inside of his lip, dropped to one knee and kissed his ring as Sirius had instructed.  His Grace touched both hands to Harry's hair for a moment, murmuring a formulaic blessing, then Harry was able to stand up and make his bow.

The next guest was, to Harry's relief, Professor Dumbledore, who bestowed on him his usual twinkling smile and a slight bow which Harry thought it prudent to return rather more deeply.  Beside him, less pleasantly, was Professor Snape wearing his family livery of blood red.  It was the first time Harry had ever seen him wear a colour other than black and he couldn't help thinking that the unflattering shade made Snape look like a Dutch cheese in a wig.  They exchanged stiff, short bows.  The third wizard introduced was Tiberius Ogden, a man Harry had met once or twice before but knew by association rather than direct contact.

The fourth gentleman wizard to step forward was a different character altogether.  He wore his formal livery of dark amber with a casual grace and elegance that put every other man in the room to shame, in spite of the older style of cut to the robes and the fact that he was wearing knee-breeches rather than trousers.  His cravat was of snowy white lace and tied with beautiful precision, and he wore his white hair long and tied in the nape of his neck.  But none of these things registered as forcibly with Harry as the very upright bearing of this elderly, regal wizard and his sharp, intelligent blue eyes as they scanned Harry's face looking for who knew what.

"Mr. Petuarius Pettifer," Sirius said quietly at his shoulder, "your grandfather's close friend and one of your trustees – sir, my ward Henry Potter …."

Harry gave him the full formal bow.  Nothing less, he felt, would be appropriate.  Apparently Mr. Pettifer shared the sentiment, for he too swept Harry a low formal bow in acknowledgement.  But then he did something wholly unexpected.  When Harry straightened up, Mr. Pettifer stepped forward, clasped his shoulders with both hands and very formally kissed him on each cheek.

"My boy, it is very gratifying to meet you again, after so many years," he said.  His voice was a light tenor, unwavering despite his years, and his accent clear and precise.  "You were too young on the previous occasion for you to remember me now, but it was my privilege to witness your birth seventeen years ago.  I wish you the greatest good fortune on attaining your majority, Henry."

"Th-thank you, sir," Harry stammered.

But Mr. Pettifer hadn't finished.

"Your other guests will forgive me, I know, if I take this moment to discharge a small duty laid upon me all those years ago," he stated.  "Had it been possible, your grandfather would have done this himself but, alas, Henry knew even then the unlikelihood of his surviving to see this day.  Accordingly, he placed the matter in my hands and charged me most solemnly to see it done."  The fierce blue eyes held Harry's for a moment.  "You behold in me your grandfather's emissary.  I am merely his hands in this and I beg that in accepting these articles from me, you take them as you would had your grandfather been here to place them in your hands himself."

Harry didn't know what to say; nothing had prepared him for a scene like this.  But Mr. Pettifer appeared to need no response.  He extracted from a pocket inside his robes two items, a small red velvet bag with a drawstring neck and a sealed letter.  The bag he put into Harry's hand.

"Firstly, Henry bade me to give to you his pocket watch.  It was passed to him by his own grandfather, Raphael Potter, and to Raphael by his grandfather Tobias."

Harry fumbled the drawstring undone and an elegant little gold pocket watch and chain slipped out into his hands.  When he opened the case, he saw that it was in fact two watches, one with an ordinary twelve hour dial and second hand, and the other bearing astronomical symbols on the face and several hands that seemed to bear no relation to ordinary timekeeping. 

"I took it to Chronos and Sons only last week to ensure it was in full working order," Mr. Pettifer told him.  "They inform me that with careful handling it will be unlikely to need further servicing until you propose to give it to your own grandson upon his majority."

Harry stared at the watch for a moment.  He couldn't think of a word to say; a curious sense of unreality was beginning to steal over him.  It seemed incredible to him that a man he knew so little of and whom he had never consciously met should have planned this scene so many years ago.  Nor could he understand why a simple article like an antique pocket watch should affect him so profoundly.  It took a moment or two for him to collect himself enough to carefully fasten the gold watch chain to the loop on his waistcoat and tuck the watch into the little pocket on the other side.

When he looked up, Mr. Pettifer was nodding his approval.  Then he held out the letter.

"Henry's words have waited seventeen years to speak to you," he said, and there was a trace of some emotion in the dignified voice as he said it.  "Your guests will not mind if you take a moment longer to read this."

That sounded remarkably like a command, and not to Harry but to everyone else in the room who was witnessing this moment.

Harry accepted the piece of folded parchment.  It was stiff and only a little yellowed at the edges by age; clearly it had been very carefully kept.  On the front, in a fine copperplate hand, were the words _To Henry J. Potter (the Younger)._ Very conscious of all the curious eyes on him, he broke the dark green seal with its impression of a stag's head and unfolded the letter to read.

 

 _The Rose House_

 _31 st July 1980_

 _My dear Henry,_

 _Your mother and father have already determined that you shall be known as "Harry", in order, they say, to avoid the confusion of having two Henrys residing under one roof.  You will forgive me, however, if my own conceit leads me to call you by your proper name, thus gratifying the vanity of your namesake this once at least._

 _Permit me, my very dear boy, to be the first to congratulate you upon attaining your majority as a wizard and forgive me, I beg, for failing to be with you on such an important day. As I write this I have at least the comfort of knowing that I have properly witnessed your entrance into the world, and that there is time left to me to ensure that your future needs will be cared for and your inheritance properly preserved for you when the time comes for you to take your place as head of our (sadly dwindled) family._

 _As I write I know that your father and mother will be making plans for you.  Knowing your father as I do, I am sure many of his notions involve broomsticks and Quidditch and mischief, while your mother wishes for you to play and dream and grow in a space where you will be untroubled by the foolish muddles we grown-ups seem to entangle ourselves in.  All of these seem good plans to me and I sincerely hope that as you read this letter you will have known just such a childhood as we all wish for you, and that you are happy and well loved._

 _None of us may know in advance what life holds for us, Henry.  I stood in your place once and looked out across a world full of possibilities, both good and bad.  As I look back at my life now, I believe myself to have been fortunate over all, in spite of many unforeseen twists and turns in my path.  No life, my boy, can be lived without its griefs to make us more appreciative of its joys, and I learned that wisdom anew today as I looked upon your face for the first time.  I hope that as you embark upon your adult life you will find yourself able to draw inspiration from we Potters who have gone before you, and that should, God forbid, dark and difficult times ever come upon you, you will be able to draw courage from knowing that you are in all our hearts and that no Potter is ever entirely alone._

 _On this the day you become a man and a wizard, Henry, I wish you courage in the face of life's adversities; faith in yourself, in those around you and in God; happiness, both in whatever career you choose to follow and with whomever you choose to share your life; and, I pray God, a lasting peace within yourself – for as a Potter I know only too well that sometimes the greatest challenges we face are not from the world at large but from within our own heads and hearts._

 _God bless you, my very dear boy, and pray believe that I shall always remain,_

 _Your loving grandfather,_

 _Henry C. Potter (now 'the Elder')_

 

For several minutes after reading this, Harry dared not look up.  His eyes felt hot and his throat tight, and it took all of his willpower to keep his face still and controlled.  When he finally thought he could do so without disgracing himself, he looked up at Mr. Pettifer and said in a slightly constricted voice, "Thank you, Sir."

Something in his reaction must have been right.  Mr. Pettifer nodded to him, satisfied.

"The honour was entirely mine, my boy.  Now – permit me to introduce you to the rest of your peers here."

Sirius's brows went up at this, but he accepted the situation good-humouredly and stepped back, allowing the courtly and autocratic old wizard to take his place.

The next fifteen minutes were a trial to Harry, as he was introduced to a succession of individuals who eyed him with everything from polite acceptance to barely veiled contempt.  He was too acute not to notice that Mr. Pettifer's own son and heir was one of those whose short bow was cold and discouraging, while the cool amusement in the eyes of Guiseppe Zabini (Blaise Zabini's father) made him bristle inwardly.  Horace Bulstrode was as unfathomable as his niece, Harry's housemate Millicent; Quintus Criggle could barely bring himself to incline his head to him; and the only truly enthusiastic face among the men was the ever-excitable Daedalus Diggle.

The ladies were an equally mixed group.  Morag MacDuff gave him her hand but insisted on kissing his cheek, while Sirius's cousin Andromeda Tonks regarded him from under the heavy-lidded eyes that seemed to be a feature of all the Black women and gave him an oddly knowing smile when he kissed her hand.  The ancient Gladys Wincher was introduced to Harry – to his quickly concealed surprise – as the sister of his grandfather's first wife.  Amelia Bones, a high-ranking member of the Wizengamot, he had met once before, and the peppery Augusta Longbottom – Neville Longbottom of Gryffindor's grandmother – didn't really need an introduction at all.  Ernestina Boot was another member of the Wizengamot and, Harry thought, a relative of a Ravenclaw boy in his year.

The final pair Mr. Pettifer introduced him to were Marius-Martyn Bellecoeur – a sour-faced man of Sirius's age whom, having met him once before, Harry bowed to with great reluctance – and his mother Persephone.  For all that she was a spindly little creature, she was an imposing old lady; Harry's main impression of her, as he bowed over her hand, was of a Roman nose and ferocious eyes studying him haughtily.  But there was no sense of immediate rejection, which was a mild surprise after her son's hostile acknowledgement.

By this time both Drooby and Dilly were circulating discreetly with trays of champagne flutes in preparation for the formal toast.  Mr. Pettifer introduced Harry to two final groups of individuals, who were keeping themselves a little apart from the other guests.  The first were two gentlemen dressed all in black, looking unnervingly like undertakers to Harry; Mervyn Blight and Darius Skinnard, representatives of the family solicitors, Blight, Blunt and Skinnards.  Harry couldn't help feeling that Sirius's advice, to merely shake hands with these gentlemen, was rather rude so he offered them a semi bow which they gravely returned.

The second group comprised three goblins from Gringotts, very dignified individuals in the most formal version of their company livery that Harry had ever seen.  While he felt that goblins were an odd race generally, Harry had never understood the wizarding world's strange dual standards in dealing with them – the casual contempt of them, whilst insisting that only goblins could be trusted with money matters – any more than he understood the cruelty with which some wizards treated house-elves.  He offered them the same respectful bow he'd given to the solicitors (although he suspected this would not go down well with some of his other guests) and thought he detected a quick flash of gratification in their faces as they returned the gesture.

Then Drooby was at Harry's elbow, offering him a champagne flute and Sirius was stepping forward to reclaim his role as Harry's sponsor by offering the toast.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in raising your glasses." He turned a smiling face to Harry and suited action to words.  "Health and long life to you, Harry!"

"Health and long life!" they all dutifully chorused.

Harry, not sure how to respond, smiled nervously.  He took a sip of his champagne to cover his confusion and had to fight not to make a face at the unexpected sourness of it.  He had become accustomed to the sweetness of most wizard drinks, especially butterbeer; the champagne was very dry and not at all to his taste. 

Apparently he was in a minority, for everyone else looked appreciative.

"Did this come from your family's stock, Black, or is it from Henry Potter's own cellars?" Guiseppe Zabini demanded, gently wafting the flute under his nose.

"This is one of Henry's," Sirius replied.  He looked wry for a moment.  "We haven't attempted to open the cellars at the Manor yet, so I'm not sure what's in there.  This is a Pompey Grand Brut – I remember James telling me that Henry laid down two lots of champagne just after Harry was born, this one to be broached this year and the other for his twenty-first.  The elves say that the wine cellar here is almost fully stocked."

"It should be looked over properly in the near future," Mr. Pettifer remarked.  "Some of those wines will have been stored a considerable period earlier and it would be a pity if they spoiled from excessive age."

"Henry would have seen to proper preserving charms, surely," Quintus Criggle said dismissively.

This earned him a look of polite disdain from Mr. Pettifer. 

"Many wines are delicate and react poorly to preservation charms," he remarked dryly.  "It will be a trifling matter to examine the vintages.  If I am unable to do so myself, I will arrange for a suitable vintner to visit."

"The boy should manage his own wine cellar," Marius-Martyn Bellecoeur remarked rather snidely.

The various looks of disapproval and rebuke directed at him by many of the other guests at this were nothing compared to the freezing glare of his mother, and Harry enjoyed Bellecoeur's discomfiture although he kept his face ruthlessly neutral.

"Understanding and appreciation of fine wine comes with age and experience," Professor Snape remarked unexpectedly, and the cool contempt in his deep, melodious voice was unmistakeable.  "As Potter has only just come of age, Bellecoeur, I for one would be very interested to know just where and how he is supposed to have developed his palate.  Or do you imagine that the dining tables of Hogwarts are graced by the great wizard vintages at each evening meal?"

Bellecoeur's lip curled. 

"One hardly knows _what_ manner of education Muggles impart to their offspring," he retorted unwisely.

"Marius!"  Madam Bellecoeur snapped, and Madam Longbottom said "Well I never!" in an affronted tone, but Harry was the least affected by this breach of manners.  The others might look anything from mildly irritated to (in Sirius's case) appalled and furious, but Harry was so accustomed to being called 'Muggle' and 'half-blood' by some of his housemates at Hogwarts that it had entirely the opposite effect to the one Bellecoeur had anticipated.

He laughed.

It drew every eye to him in surprise, but Harry stared back at Bellecoeur in undisguised amusement.

"My Muggle uncle drinks beer and brandy, Mr. Bellecoeur," he said, grinning impudently.  "He won't touch wine because he says it's for nancy-boys and foreigners, not Englishmen.  My aunt has a glass of sherry at Christmas and that's about it!"

Remus let out an explosive chuckle that he tried unsuccessfully to turn into a cough, only for Professor Dumbledore to laugh quietly too.

"I'm a firm believer that every man should discover his own preferences and hold to them," he said cheerfully, diffusing some of the tension.  "There's no reason why that advice should not be as good for Muggles as it is for wizards!"

"Happy is the man who knows his limits," the Bishop of Avebury pronounced unexpectedly, and it was he who turned the awkward moment around by remarking, "This is a truly remarkable champagne, but I believe Henry Potter was something of an expert."

"Quite so," Mr. Pettifer replied.  "Of course, he encountered some very fine vintages during his travels.  The Pompey family were particular friends, which would account for him having access to this – they ship very few bottles to England, you know.  I believe it entirely possible that this may be the only example of its year in the country, which makes it even more important to examine the cellar."

Harry began to wonder if the entire conversation would revolve around fine wines, which was both boring and a little alarming – seeing as he knew nothing about wine other than that he probably wouldn't like it much if it tasted like the champagne – but he was rescued when the small tables set up around a circle of chairs before the fireplace suddenly began to sprout little plates of dainty sandwiches and other buffet foods.  The gentlemen relaxed and began to talk among themselves as Drooby and another elf circulated among them with more platters and Harry, seeing Sirius's meaningfully raised brow, went to do his duty as host among the ladies.

Having politely helped each of the witches to her choice of the snacks, he was grateful when he was firmly grabbed by Morag MacDuff and drawn into a seat between her and Andromeda Tonks, although that still left him facing the other ladies like a firing squad across the semi-circle.

Madam Tonks equally firmly put a tea-plate into his hands and offered him one of the serving platters. 

"Have a lobster patty before we eat them all!" she encouraged him, amused.  "If dear cousin Sirius and his keeper over there gave you time to snatch a proper breakfast this morning, I'll be very surprised.  Take a moment to stave off the never-ending hunger pangs you young men seem to suffer from.  We're quite capable of entertaining ourselves for five minutes."

Harry accepted one of the patties, too distracted by the idea of Remus being Sirius's 'keeper' to protest overmuch.  Morag added several small sandwiches and a few other things that he couldn't immediately identify to his plate and started a conversation with Madam Bones directly opposite, so that Harry didn't have to be polite. 

"Interesting decision by the Inheritance Court over Black, Andromeda," Madam Bellecoeur said unexpectedly.  "I read the full judgement in the _Prophet_ last week – I wouldn't have thought he would accept those terms.  What's your view?"

"Oh, I supported him," Madam Tonks replied composedly.  "It was the only possible decision, don't you think?  After all, he never _was_ properly disinherited – I remember my mother saying how my aunt raged about it when Sirius's father died, especially when Regulus was sent to Azkaban too."

"I can't imagine your sister shares your opinion," was the dry response to this.

Madam Tonks shrugged lightly.  "Narcissa and I have very different views on the matter," she said equally dryly.  "I'm afraid I don't especially fancy my nephew becoming my _paterfamilias_ , given the politics of his father.  Besides, there was no reason to pass the House over to the Malfoys while a true Black still lives."

"Still – what are the chances of him producing an heir in the time limit they've set?" Madam Longbottom put in rather sceptically.  "Especially considering his domestic arrangements?"

Harry was privately rather pleased when Madam Tonks responded to this with a repressive "I don't know, Augusta.  Why don't you ask him?"

Apparently Madam Longbottom had skin like rhinoceros hide, for she replied quite obliviously, "I shall.  I was merely curious to know what you thought.  But perhaps – what do you think, young Potter?  Has your godfather confided in you?"

Harry promptly lost interest in his lobster patty.  Acutely uncomfortable, he muttered "I think he's making arrangements, ma'am – "

"Augusta, stop embarrassing the boy!" Madam Bellecoeur interrupted sharply.  "Unseemly topic of conversation for a coming-of-age party, if you ask me.  Black has agreed to the terms of his inheritance, therefore he'll do what's necessary.  Nothing more needs to be said.  I'm more interested in what he proposes to do with the Manor.  I should think it's a pile of dust and cobwebs by now, not to mention some of the oddities his father and grandfather indulged in there.  The workrooms must be a death-trap.  Is it true that the three of you live in the _servants' quarters_ , young Henry?"

At least on this question he was on solid ground.  "Yes, ma'am.  Sirius has sealed off the rest of the house for now – he wants to get some expert advice before he renovates it."

"Wise man," Madam Tonks remarked wryly.  "Cousin Severus's experiments in the cellar when we were young were gruesome enough.  I dread to think what else you'll find."

"Pity though," Madam Bellecoeur persisted.  "Large houses need proper airing.  There were some very fine rooms at Black Manor – I remember staying there once as a girl.  Of course, with no house-elves in residence ….  And rumour has it that the elf at the town house became quite deranged.  I shudder to think what the state of the linen cupboards must be at the Manor.  Your family's elves have done a fine job here, Henry."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"I'm told you were sorted into Slytherin," she said, in an abrupt change of topic that caught him off-guard. 

"Yes, ma'am – "

"Not what it was in _my_ day, of course.  I've reason to believe some of the young sprigs treat it like a personal fiefdom.  Is that true?"  Her sharp eyes bored into him.  "As you'll have guessed, I was a Slytherin.  What do you think of that, eh?"

"I think you were probably very at home there, ma'am," Harry said, giving up on biting his tongue in favour of brute honesty.

But Madam Bellecoeur chuckled.  "About time you dropped that smooth face and spoke your mind, young man.  Your grandfather may have made his name in diplomacy, but you're an owl of a different feather entirely.  You can be open with me – what did the Malfoy brat do to get himself exiled to Durmstrang?  I'm not buying Lucius's smooth little insinuations about Dumbledore's favouritism and sliding standards at Hogwarts.  I remember his grandfather too well."

Fortunately, Harry was saved from having to answer this by Sirius joining them and pulling up a chair.

"Andromeda, if you love me you'll pass me the devilled eggs before I fade away," he said.  "Ladies, forgive me if I hide here with you for a while.  If I hear one more word about vintage clarets, I'll start throwing glasses into the fireplace.  It's not as though Criggle really knows anything about it."

"Man's a fool," Madam Longbottom put in bluntly.  "Fine wines and fiddle-faddle!  And have you seen that monstrous creation around his neck?  Calls that a cravat!  Humbug!  If you're wise you'll keep your nose clean of that sort of dandyism, Black, and set about proper wizard business.  Are you taking up your seat in the Wizengamot when the summer recess ends?"

"I believe it's expected of me," Sirius said evasively.

"Well you should.  Who else will teach this young man the ropes?"

"I believe I may be of some small assistance in that regard, dear lady."  Mr. Pettifer had decided to join them too.  "Youth will give way to experience, I'm sure – no, no, Black, remain where you are, the good Drooby has a seat here just for me." 

He bowed smilingly to the ladies and settled onto an elegant but rather spindly-looking chair.  Harry had already noticed that all the furniture in the morning room was of the same type, very narrow and fragile in appearance, but when he'd cautiously taken his own seat he'd touched the base and felt the light framework of a precise strengthening charm.  He was intrigued but suspected that turning the chair upside down to examine it would be rather impolite right then.

The empty champagne flutes began to disappear from the tables, to be replaced by a dainty china tea service and numerous small teapots, milk jugs and sugar bowls.  The entire set was clearly a wizard tea service, from the beautiful design of dragons and unicorns on the china to the little legs sported by every pot, jug and bowl.  Remembering that he was the host, Harry wondered if he should just stand up and pour the tea or whether it was acceptable to use magic.  Professor Dumbledore nearly always seemed to use magic when he served guests, and Harry shrugged inwardly, guessing that a little showing off on his birthday wouldn't be taken amiss.

Making a teapot pour itself neatly was normally child's play to Harry - except that today the magic wouldn't come.  Instead of the power flowing smoothly and copiously as it had in the library at Hogwarts only days before, it felt as though something was deliberately blocking Harry's access to it, allowing only a small trickle through.  Feeling panicked, and fighting a lead weight that seemed to be sitting on his magic, he forced himself to reach out calmly and touch the teapots with his wand to make them move.  Sirius's eyes were on him as he did so – Sirius knew only too well that Harry could do this sort of thing in a blink from several yards away – and he could feel Professor Dumbledore watching too from a few feet away.  The witches were all talking around Harry and he could hear Mr. Pettifer's measured pleasantries, but the sounds seemed to fade away and his brain refused to translate what any of them were saying.

And then he felt it – a prickling sensation in his scar like the touch of spider's feet across the sensitive spot.

 _No, not here!  Not now!_

Swallowing his panic and forcing his face to remain calm, Harry looked around and his eyes fell on Professor Snape.  The potions master was talking to Criggle and Ogden, apparently unconcerned, but his face seemed to Harry to have lost some of its colour.  That could mean only one thing; Voldemort was putting some kind of pressure on him too.

 _Occlumency_ , Harry thought suddenly.  These were far from ideal conditions but if he couldn't control his mind in this company, then he might as well surrender himself to the Death Eaters straight away.

First, empty the mind of thoughts ….  Always the hardest part, but somehow Harry focussed on a spot of flawless white porcelain on his teacup and blanked everything else out to that bland whiteness, including his panic.

Second, make the surface of the mind like a mirror.  Another tricky thing, but he had learned that it was possible to let everything around him – sight, sound, smell, taste, touch – pour over him without reacting to it, letting it slide over the surface of his mind.

The sounds of the conversation around him returned, making perfect sense again.  Madam Wincher was talking to Madam Bones about day schools for young children; Morag MacDuff was asking Sirius a question about legal documents; Mr. Pettifer was telling a light, pleasant story about something he had discovered in an old book belonging to an ancestor.

Thirdly, fill the surface mind with irrelevant thoughts to distract.  That was easier than Harry usually found it; the lobster patty still sitting on his plate was full of rich, unaccustomed flavours and he deliberately picked it up and bit into it, relishing each one extravagantly.

Something probed his shields – not in the hammer-blow Voldemort normally used on Harry, but still as rough as a muscular hand in a gardening glove, deliberately searching for weaknesses with an unsubtle crudity of purpose that made Snape's needle-sharp legilimency look like a caress.  Harry focussed all his attention on the patty – was that a hint of lemon juice, was the spice dancing on his tongue cracked black pepper or something more exotic?

And just as abruptly, the probing was gone, along with the fiery prickle in his scar.  He could feel the block on his magic fading, but Harry continued to hold his mind closed, enjoying the savour of the lobster puff as he swallowed the final bite.

Madam MacDuff got up, excusing herself, and crossed the room to speak to the solicitors who were standing by the long windows.  Sirius quickly took her place and under the cover of putting another snack on Harry's plate murmured "Are you all right?"

Harry smiled at him.  "I'm fine."  As if to prove it he turned to Andromeda Tonks.  "Another cup of tea, ma'am?"

And without moving a muscle he made the teapot and milk jug canter across the table on their little legs.

 

xXx

 

The rest of the afternoon seemed to pass in a whirl of activity.  Harry posed for what seemed like hours for formal photographs in the ballroom, both by a studio photographer and a man from the _Daily Prophet_.  Then he joined Sirius, Remus, his trustees, the solicitors and the goblins from Gringotts in his grandfather's imposing study to have legal documents read at him until his eyes crossed and signed paper after paper while Morag MacDuff stood at his elbow explaining to him in layman's terms precisely what he was signing and why.

In the meantime most of his guests went home, all except Andromeda Tonks, who wanted to speak to Sirius, and Mr. Pettifer who paused to talk to Dumbledore before taking a stately formal farewell of Harry.

Finally, having done all that, Remus told Harry kindly that he could take himself off to get changed and ready to go home – leaving Harry to wonder, as he trailed wearily back to the loving attentions of Maffy, whether _this_ house would ever be his home and if he would come to see it as such.

It was six o'clock before Sirius Apparated them into the tiny courtyard outside Black Manor's kitchen door.  Harry felt almost embarrassingly emotional at the sight of home, a place he hadn't seen for the better part of a month.  When he climbed the stairs to his tower bedroom, he discovered that his trunk and a sizeable second box containing all his puppet-making bits and pieces had already arrived from Hogwarts and were waiting at the foot of his bed, while his owl Hedwig was hooting a welcome from her perch by the window.  Harry gave her an owl treat and threw the window open so that she could come and go as she pleased.

He was carefully stowing his formal robes in his wardrobe when he remembered something and delved hastily into a concealed inner pocket in the outer robe.  His grandfather's watch and letter were safe though and he sat down to unfold the parchment and read it once more.  One phrase jumped out at him.

I sincerely hope that as you read this letter you will have known just such a childhood as we all wish for you, and that you are happy and well loved.

Had it been anyone else writing those words, Harry might have been bitter.  But his grandfather could not have known or guessed at the sequence of events that would occur less than eighteen months later, leaving his grandson in the care of the two people in the world who least wanted Harry left on their hands.  Besides, the letter symbolised so much more to him.  How many times had his pureblood housemates at school taunted him for being a half-blood?  Draco Malfoy in particular had made a point of emphasising the importance of Harry's pureblood ancestors and how horrified they would have been to be succeeded by someone who was little better than a Mudblood.

It was a lie.  There had been no rejection from his ancestors' portraits today.  And one of the most important of them, the one person who could have prevented Harry inheriting even his family name when he was born, had left a letter in safekeeping expressly to tell him that he was loved and wanted.

Harry slipped the pocket watch out of its pouch and studied the delicate scrollwork of the gold case, the beautifully illuminated dials and fine chain.  After a moment, he slid it back into the velvet pouch and picked up the letter, carefully refolding it.  It was no use; these two objects were far too valuable.  He would have to ask Sirius to put them in the strongbox, along with his parents' wands, as much as he would have liked to keep them close at hand.

Remus made the promised sausage casserole for dinner, which lightened Harry's mood considerably, especially when he discovered that there was a small chocolate cake with a single candle on the top for dessert.

"Personally, I think a stuffy coming-of-age party is a miserable way to spend a birthday," Remus remarked.  The dinner table had been moved to the stretch of gravel path just outside their little sitting room, where they could enjoy the last of the evening sun.  "This isn't much of a cake, I'm afraid, Harry – "

"It's fine," Harry interrupted.  "This is great, really."

"We're saving the proper cake for when you have your proper party," Sirius said, leaning back in his chair with a bottle of butterbeer in one hand.  "Anyone you fancy inviting?  Obviously we'll invite Ron when he gets back from Egypt."

Harry hesitated.  It was one thing to lament that everyone else got parties on their birthdays, and another entirely to contemplate having one himself.  He could think of people it _might_ be worth inviting, but he wasn't entirely convinced.

"Do I have to have a big party?" he asked.

"No, of course not," Remus said at once, glancing at Sirius.  "You don't have to have a party at all if you don't want to.  We just thought you might like to have a few friends around to celebrate."

"I don't have that many friends," Harry said.  "Besides, I don't know that I'd want people like Blaise and Tony around all evening.  They're okay, but …."

"You could be radical and set a new trend by having them around for a morning party," Sirius joked.  "Although after today's little shindig …."

"Yeah, I reckon that's put me off tea parties for life," Harry replied, with a grimace.

"Speaking of tea, was it me or did something funny happen when you started to pour?"

Harry blinked.  "That was nothing."

Both men were eyeing him keenly. 

"Severus seemed to think that Voldemort tried to put the whammy on you," Remus said. 

"Yeah.  He did that thing where he tries to pick my brain."  Harry paused, suddenly remembering how the attack had initially manifested.  "There's something weird going on," he said abruptly.  "Something to do with my magic."

Sirius leaned forward.  "Such as?"

"It's happened before, but it happened today just before he started pushing."  Harry looked at them for a moment, before deciding it was preferable to study the label on his bottle of butterbeer instead.  "Do you ever get times when it feels like you have loads of magic and could do anything, but other times it's really hard to find enough to light your wand?"

"Sometimes, perhaps, when I'm over-tired or just after the full moon," Remus said carefully.  "Why, is this happening to you much?"

"There's no pattern to it," Harry said unhappily.  "I suppose it's been happening for a while, but I only really noticed it when Professor Flitwick started making me measure my power and control it.  It's – it's really uneven.  Sometimes I can just touch it and there's so much that I feel like I'm going to blow up like a balloon.  Or blow something _else_ up.  Then there's other times when it's really hard to do simple, first year stuff.  I can't seem to get an accurate measurement at all."

"Are there times when you're somewhere between the two?" Sirius asked quietly.  "Not enough magic to light up London, but enough to do the usual stuff you do at school?  An average?"

Harry thought about that.  "Yeah.  Most of the time I can do all the usual stuff and it doesn't feel weird at all.  Like now.  But sometimes I call the magic and there's just – just _buckets_ of it, and other times it's like the bucket leaked overnight and there's just a puddle at the bottom.  But it's not just that!  Today, it felt that something was actually cutting the magic off.  Like, if I'd pulled hard enough it should be there, only something was stopping me getting at it.  And then _he_ started poking around."

"Severus says you stopped him," Remus said, but his eyes were on Sirius.

"This sounds like something you need to ask Dumbledore," Sirius said.  His tone was reassuring.  "I don't think it's something you should get stressed about – because getting stressed doesn't help with that sort of thing anyway – but the next time we see Dumbledore, which should be tomorrow or the next day, ask him about it."

"Do you think it's something Voldemort's doing to me?" Harry asked anxiously.

Sirius hesitated.  "I suppose it's possible," he said finally, a little reluctantly.  "You _are_ linked together, after all.  But I don't pretend to understand how that affects things like your magic and how you use it.  Until we see Dumbledore, it would be a good idea to concentrate on the Occlumency, though."

"Snape said you definitely deflected the intruder today," Remus put in.  "Mind you, he seemed to think it wasn't a particularly determined attack, but all the same – you were in a room full of difficult people, in a stressful situation, and you still blocked it.  Ignore his over-effusive praise, and give yourself a pat on the back!"

"Maybe tomorrow, when I'm not knackered," Harry said, grinning a little wryly.

"In the meantime …." Sirius waved his wand, sending the empty plates and cutlery floating back towards the kitchen.  Then he reached under the table.  "You didn't think we forgot your present, did you?"

Harry's eyes lit up.  "But you already gave me a CD player!"

"Pah!  That's not a present, it's a toy.  An educational toy, since you don't seem to have worked out how to charm it yet."

"I was leaving it until we came back here, so the magic at Hogwarts wouldn't mess with it …."

"Well, this is something useful instead."

Sirius put a large, square-ish parcel wrapped in gaudy red and silver striped paper in the middle of the table and gestured for Harry to open it.

"Unfortunately," Remus said, as Harry began to neatly pick the curled silver ribbons undone, "when you reach seventeen you start to get sensible presents.  But hopefully you'll enjoy these anyway."

It was books, mostly of the large, leather-bound and second-hand variety.  The top one, a very wide tome that was relatively new and had only slight scuffing of the deep red cover, made Harry yelp with delight. 

" _Skinner & Bonewright's Fantastical Anatomy!_  I was using this at Hogwarts, to make my dragon!  Brilliant!"

"I thought it might come in handy," Remus said, pleased.

The next was a much older book, also quite broad, bound in more traditional tan calf-leather with a very faded spine from which all the lettering had worn off.  When Harry opened it, though, he was intrigued. 

" _The Art of the Toymaker_ – is this a wizard book?"

"Flitwick suggested I try to find a copy," Sirius replied.  "Toymaking is a respectable profession with a long history in our world.  And it also happens to be one of the few professions these days where Animators can legitimately use their skills for profit.  It goes with the book underneath, by the way, although that one _is_ a Muggle book."

" _Puppets & Puppetry: An Illustrated History,_" Harry noted.  "Why a Muggle book?"

"Because for some reason puppetry has never really been popular in the magical community," Remus said.  "I suppose that's because our artwork is mobile and our sports aerobatic.  The theatrical arts never really caught on with us either, although there's a long history of music, song, literature and poetry – you don't see it much in England anymore, but auditoriums for music and poetic recitation are still quite popular on the continent."

The third book was a small, solid volume with a cloth jacket: _The Noble Sport of Duelling (inc. A Gentleman Wizard's Guide to the Code Of Duellists [revised and updated])_.

"It's a bit out of date," Sirius remarked, as Harry flicked through this with interest.  "I thought it might come in handy, though.  It has all the more obscure rules fully listed, including the socially accepted penalties for fouling and the possible legal repercussions of any really serious incidents.  In particular, there's a list of rules that _must_ be followed for a challenge to be legal."

"All of which are perfectly useless if you're squaring off against a Death Eater," Remus noted.

"But which might come in handy should you survive the bout and want to report him to the Aurors," Sirius added.

The next book was a chunky compilation of three action/adventure novels by a popular magical author – "Light relief," Remus said, smiling – and the final volume was a bound edition of a whole year's worth of a wizard adult comic called _The Adventures of Saucy Sylvester and His Remarkable Magical Tools_.

"Heavy relief," Sirius said, with a grin.

"Subtle!" Harry remarked, trying to suppress a snigger as he flicked briefly through it, and Remus rolled his eyes.

 

xXx

 

Harry was only halfway through Saucy Sylvester's interesting adventure involving three Peruvian witches and the unusual totem pole they worshipped when he fell asleep that night. 

Thanks to diligent practice of Occlumency, however, he passed a peaceful night that was interrupted only by an equally interesting dream involving Ron, the totem pole and a secluded tropical oasis sporting a pool of naturally hot spring water that was just big enough for two people to bathe in together.  It was so interesting, in fact, that Harry was quite annoyed to be woken the following morning by someone nudging his shoulder.

"Don't," he mumbled irritably, and at another more insistent nudge he turned over to face his attacker.

He came face to face with a pair of elliptic blue eyes and a set of magnificent whiskers.

Harry stared, sleepy and disbelieving.  It couldn't be -

"Rosie?"

 _"Mmmrow!"_

 _"Rosebud!"_   Harry sat up sharply, making the kneazle jump back with a startled hiss and flatten her ears.  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"  He picked her up, smoothing her fur apologetically.  "What are you doing here, girl?  He's not coming home for another week …."

Harry stopped, staring down at the kneazle.  If Rosebud was here, then that meant –

In another second he'd kicked his covers aside and rushed out of bed, still carrying Rosebud as he tore down the stairs as fast as he could.  He found a bleary-eyed Sirius and Remus sitting at the kitchen table,  trying to wake themselves up with large mugs of tea.

"Where's the dragon?" Sirius demanded half-heartedly at his godson's impetuous entrance.  Then he frowned.  "Where'd the kneazle come from?"

"Isn't he here?" Harry demanded.

Remus squinted at him.  "Who?"

"Ron!  He must be here – this is Rosebud!"

It took a moment or two for his half-awake godparents to process this.

"Bloody silly name for a kneazle," Sirius said.  "And don't think you're keeping it, either," he added.  "I love you, Harry, but I'm not having a feline making a pest of itself when I'm a dog."

"I don't want a kneazle!  She belongs to Ron – "

"Good.  Molly Weasley's welcome to it."

"You don't understand!  If Rosebud's here, then Ron must be too – he took her to Egypt with him!  He must be home again!"

"Harry," Remus said, with as much patience as he could muster, "do you know what time it is?"

"What does that matter?" Harry said blankly.

"It's six thirty, Harry.  No sane wizard visits anyone at six thirty in the morning.  That's because it's rude and it's liable to get him hexed six ways before breakfast."

"Who cares about that?"

Still carrying Rosebud, Harry headed for the door into the kitchen garden and threw it open, dashing outside.  Remus gave Sirius a weary look.

"Maybe I'm just getting old, but – don't most teenagers prefer to sleep late if they can?"

"James."  Sirius propped his chin on one hand and let his eyes close.  "James never slept late either.  Always up and buzzing around at the crack of dawn.  Quidditch practice … pranks … hiding outside the girls' bathroom, trying to catch Evans in her skivvies …."

"I remember.  Oh God."  Remus let his head drop to the table.

Harry returned a few minutes later, his face etched with disappointment.

"If he's not here, why is Rosebud?" he demanded of the general air.  "Hang on a minute, Rosie, I'll get you some milk …."

Sirius and Remus deemed it better not to answer this.  Harry put Rosebud on the floor and went to the pantry.  By the time he returned, the kneazle had calmly walked over to an old cloak of Remus's hanging from a hook on the wall, climbed into a pocket and disappeared.

"Where did she go?" Harry demanded.

Sirius was sorely tempted to tease him a little, for the boy's expression was almost comical in its bewilderment, but he still wasn't quite awake enough to pull it off successfully.

"Kneazles do that sometimes," he said flatly.  "Just because it was here doesn't mean Ron is, Harry.  He's probably still in Cairo – "

"Why would Rosebud come here if Ron is in Egypt?"  Harry had a sudden, alarming thought.  "Could something be wrong with Ron?  Could he have had – "

"Harry!"  Remus grabbed the teenager's wrist and steered him firmly into a seat.  "Sit down, have a cup of tea and calm down!  _Please._   It's too early to be rampaging about."

"But – "

"Harry, if anything has happened to Ron when he's in the company of half a dozen curse-breakers, then I can guarantee you there's nothing _you_ can do about it, especially when you're a full continent distant from him," Sirius interrupted.  "So have some breakfast and calm down.  If you really must, you can Floo-call Arthur Weasley in an hour, but I can guarantee he'll think you're mad.  There is absolutely _no_ reason to assume there's anything wrong with Ron at all.  Kneazles come and go as they please all the time."

Harry had to be content with this and after breakfast reluctantly agreed not to Floo-call Ron's father after all.  But he was so twitchy for the rest of the day that by dinner Sirius almost made the call himself, just so the boy would calm down and do something productive.

The following morning an owl brought the two older men a message from Professor Dumbledore to let them know that a small group of Order members – mostly people specialising in the Dark Arts and control of dangerous magical objects – would be visiting that afternoon to discuss what Remus was beginning to whimsically refer to as "the Assault on Black Manor".

When people began to arrive Harry retreated to his bedroom, unsure whether he was wanted in the sitting room below and wanting in any case to nurse his disappointment.  He'd really thought Ron must be on his way home the previous day; why else would Rosebud suddenly decide to appear like that?  But it seemed he had another week to wait after all, and in his current mood he was strongly inclined to spend that week curled up in bed, where unsympathetic persons couldn't inflict sensible advice on him.

So when someone tapped on his bedroom door, he called "Come in" in a very desultory way.  But it wasn't Sirius or Remus coming to drag him downstairs to the meeting after all.  Instead a tall, redheaded, freckle-faced figure put his head around the door and grinned broadly at him.

Ron had come home after all.

 

xXx

 

"Why are you back so soon?" Harry demanded. 

They were sprawled across his bed and Harry effectively had Ron pinned in place; he was draped across his chest, but Ron didn't seem to mind.

"I can go again if you want!" he teased and he made to get up.  Harry mock-growled and pushed him back, making him laugh.  "Bill got a note from Dumbledore and we decided to come back a week early."  He shifted his head on the pillow so that he could look at Harry's face more comfortably.  "I thought I might get home in time for your birthday, mate, but we missed a portkey after all and didn't get in until late last night.  Sorry about that."

"It's okay."  Harry plucked at a button on his friend's shirt, eyes fixed on his face.  Ron had clearly not used enough sunblock while he was abroad; the tip of his nose was pink and peeling, and he was red in odd spots around his hairline and neck.  "I wasn't here on Thursday anyway.  We had to go to my family's place for a formal reception.  There were loads of important people there."

Ron grinned at him.  "Yeah, I know!  Sit up a minute – "

He reached over to where his robe was lying in a crumpled heap on the side of the bed and rummaged in it.  Harry saw a faint sparkle of dust lifting from it in a shaft of afternoon sunlight from the window.  All of Ron's clothes smelled subtly different; he'd noticed it particularly when he grabbed his friend in a hug earlier.  Foreign smells, comprised of unfamiliar herbs and spices and other things he couldn't quite identify, but none of them masked the essential smell of Ron and that comforted him.

Finally the redhead pulled a folded sheet of newspaper out of a pocket and pushed it at him. 

"Take a look.  I got this from my Dad's copy of the _Prophet_ this morning."

Harry unfolded it and stared, dumbfounded.

"Great picture!" Ron teased him.

It was his coming-of-age photo, but instead of the brief announcement Remus had warned him to expect, there was a full page article including pictures of his father _and_ grandfather from their coming-of-age celebrations too.  James Potter grinned at him boldly and winked, while a very young Henry Potter seemed almost as self-conscious as Harry was in his own picture.

"Henry Potter the Younger," Ron noted.  "That must seem weird."

"You've no idea," Harry said, staring at the article.  He wasn't sure he wanted to read it, given his track record with the _Daily Prophet_.  "I can't believe they dug up a picture of my grandfather – I mean, look at it.  It's Victorian!"

"Your dad looks like a confident bloke."

"Yeah."

"And you _really_ look like both of them."

"I really look like _all_ of them," Harry replied.  "There's a picture gallery at the house and they all have my hair and nose and – this is really weird – they all seem to have hands like mine."  He stretched his hands out for Ron to inspect; they weren't particularly big but they were slim with strong, capable fingers.  "A lot of them wore glasses too," he added, pushing his own up the bridge of his nose self-consciously.

"So what was your coming-of-age party like?" Ron wanted to know.

Harry shrugged, folding the newspaper article up.  "It was full of crusty old purebloods who mostly came to see how much of a Muggle I am, and I had to dress up like a waxwork dummy and be polite to them.  Then the solicitors read out my dad's Will and explained what I was inheriting and I had to sign a load of documents to prove that I was really me and that I agreed to all the terms and conditions of the legacy and family entail.  And _then_ Sirius and my trustees signed a load of papers and said that they agreed to continue representing me, because I don't really inherit anything until I'm twenty-one.  And finally the goblins from Gringotts said that since I'd been good enough to survive to seventeen, I could have a few more Galleons a month on my allowance."

Ron was getting good at reading between the lines when Harry rambled like this.

"So did you find out how much money you really have?" he asked.  "Because you didn't know at Easter."

Harry hesitated.  "One of my trustees explained it a bit.  There's stuff that's mine, and stuff that belongs to the family and not just me.  The money in my bank vault is partly money that my grandfather settled on me when I was born – like a Christening present, I suppose – and partly eleven years' worth of my allowance that I didn't know about before I started at Hogwarts.  On top of that, all the spare cash in my Mum and Dad's personal vault automatically got Willed to me when they died and was transferred to my vault – does that make sense?"

"Yeah.  Go on."

"So that's mine right now and I can mostly do what I like with it, although my allowance is non-negotiable until I'm twenty-one.  Then there's my grandfather's personal fortune – that was Willed to my dad when Grandpapa died, but it was held in trust for him until he was twenty-five.  Only Mum and Dad – well, they weren't twenty-five when Voldemort killed them, so the trust got transferred to me.  There's the house and all its contents, which is technically family property but because I'm the _paterfamilias_ I can move in when I'm twenty-one and I get full ownership of it when I'm twenty-five.   And _then_ there's the investments that belong to the Potter family, rather than just to me.  I won't be allowed to touch those until I'm twenty-five either, and even then there's a limit on what I can do with them.   And there's some jewellery, some that gets given to women marrying into the family and some that gets given to daughters – that sort of thing – and that belongs to the family as well."

"In other words, you're incredibly rich," Ron summed up.

"Yeah, I suppose.  Except that I can't touch most of it until I'm older."

"You've probably got enough to be going on with," Ron said dryly.

Harry looked at him.  "It doesn't seem real," he said.  "For years my uncle told me that I was nothing but a burden and I'd be living in a gutter if he and Aunt Petunia hadn't been kind enough to take me in.  And you know what?"

Ron could guess.  "He was lying, right?  Your trustees paid them to look after you."

"Yeah," Harry said bitterly.  "All that time, when I had to wear Dudley's old clothes and they made me sleep under the stairs, they were getting money from my parents' estate to feed, clothe and educate me.  But that probably explains how they could afford to send Dudley to Smeltings.  I wonder what happened when Sirius came back and took me away from them?"

"Do you reckon they kicked up about it?"

"I don't know.  Remus told me at Easter that they didn't know about the house or estate, so payment must have been arranged some other way.  They're not getting paid now – Madam MacDuff said so."  Harry shifted restlessly.  "I can't get my head around it all.  It just doesn't seem _real_.  There's a house out there – " he waved a hand vaguely at the window, "with a portrait gallery full of pictures of people who look like me.  There's a room there full of my dad's stuff, his clothes, his records, his books, his brooms.  And there are eight house-elves who treat me almost like God.  But it feels totally unreal, like it belongs to this other Harry Potter bloke and I was just there by mistake."

Ron reached out and grabbed his arm, squeezing it gently.

"It's okay," he said earnestly.  "You're still _you_ , all right?  And you'll get used to it after a while.  You don't have to be someone different just because you have a big house and loads of money."

"They made me dress up in those clothes and I felt like someone different," Harry said, waving the folded newspaper article in the air between them.

Ron plucked it out of his fingers and threw it aside.  "Sod that.  It's the person inside the clothes I'm interested in and I don't want you to change."

Harry smiled a little at his vehemence.  Then he pushed Ron back against the pillows and flopped out across his chest once more. 

"Let's forget about all that for now," he said, grinning.  "What was Egypt like?"

 

xXx

 

"When I'm in Egypt, I really miss English tea," Bill Weasley remarked, as he accepted a mug from Remus.  "Then when I'm at home I miss the tea they make there.  And Ron's been nattering on about butterbeer for the past week – you can't get it over there, because technically it's alcohol and the Arab wizard community is even stricter about it than the Muggles are."

"Is that all he's been nattering on about?" Sirius asked, and Bill rolled his eyes.

"No!  Christ ….  I really want to meet Harry now, because none of the newspapers ever mention anything about him being ten feet tall with a halo."

"I find that encouraging," Remus remarked, over the others' chuckles.  "Harry hasn't actually said a lot, other than dragging around with a face like a wet weekend every time he got a postcard – "

"But we nearly murdered him yesterday morning when that bloody kneazle turned up," Sirius finished for him.  "I was _this far_ from dragging him into the coach-house and hanging him from the rafters."

"Because, of course, we were none of us foolish when we were young and infatuated with someone for the first time," Dumbledore observed gently, amused.

"Maybe, Professor," Bill said with a grin.  "I was pretty close to selling Ron to a passing Tuareg caravan after the birthday present fiasco, but fortunately we found something.  In fact, I was wondering if you'd be willing to give me an opinion on it before Ron hands it over."

Professor Dumbledore's brows rose.  "Indeed?"

Bill fished a wooden box out from under his chair.  "He found it in a junk shop in Cairo, which was a surprise in itself, but the bigger surprise was the price.  We had to haggle a bit, of course, but – well, it was cheap enough that either the shopkeeper didn't know what it was or it isn't the real thing.  I've checked it over and it _seems_ genuine, but since you already have one, I thought you might be able to confirm one way or the other."

He set the box on the table and flicked the catches, swinging the lid back and pulling back several layers of felt before lifting the object out carefully.  Sirius drew in a sharp breath and heard several of the others do the same. 

It was a Pensieve.  A much smaller one than Dumbledore's own, which was the size of a small birdbath and of a dull grey stone – this was perhaps twice the size of a large wine goblet, made of a pinkish alabaster.  It had the same flattened bowl and runes carved around the lip, and it stood on a single pedestal with three small, exquisitely carved claw-feet.  There were a few chips and scratches here and there which argued that it had led an eventful existence before finally arriving at the shop, but it was still a remarkable object to those who knew what it was.

"Bill, you must be joking," Remus said, breaking the silence.  "Pensieves are _incredibly_ rare and expensive – well out of the price range of a schoolboy."

"That's what makes me think it might be a fake," Bill admitted.  "The only reason I hesitated was because the shopkeeper was a squib and I really don't think he knew what it was.  Besides, there's no tradition of using Pensieves in the East – their magical training techniques put a lot of emphasis on training the memory, rather than relying on external aids.  God only knows who it belonged to before.  According to the shopkeeper, it arrived in a crateful of rubbish from a bloke who was selling up and joining his family in Algeria."

Tonks was nursing her cup of tea as she listened.  "Did you get a gander at any of the other junk it came with?" she asked.

"Yes, and it really was junk," Bill replied.  "No other magical artefacts at all – I think the owner must have been a Muggle, which might explain the condition the Pensieve's in.  He probably thought it was a plant pot."

"I imagine Ronald will be very disappointed if his gift turns out to be little more than that after all," Dumbledore remarked, as he examined the Pensieve.  "What will you do if that is the case?"

Bill grinned wryly.  "I found a nice book of mummification spells in the same shop.  I told Ron I'd swap it if the Pensieve was a fake."

"Because what Remus and I really _need_ is Harry practising mummification in the cellar," Sirius said wryly.  "Thank you."

Bill grinned at him.  "He can practice on old Erroll," he suggested slyly.  "Poor old thing's just about on his last pin-feather and he might as well go out in style."

"I wonder if Erroll would agree?" Remus mused whimsically.

"If it's the book I think it is," Professor Snape put in unexpectedly, from his seat in the corner, "he will glean a great deal of useful information about anatomy from it."

Sirius looked at him.  "Do I want to know how you know that?"

Snape shrugged indifferently.  "Our mutual grandfather possessed a copy.  It kept me occupied for an entire summer."

"Good God – is _that_ what you were doing in the basement that year?" 

"Grandfather had a particularly well-appointed workroom there which he permitted me to use - "

"I spent hours scraping up enough river weed to pour through the ventilation grill on top of you," Sirius said wistfully.

"I'm sure you did," Snape retorted.  "It seemed a pity to waste such effort, so I bottled it and made sure it ended up in your soup at dinner."

Remus hid a grin.

"That'd explain why Mother complained about the pea-soup tasting off that evening," Sirius agreed.  "Good thing I never liked pea-soup anyway."

Dumbledore finished his careful examination of the Pensieve.

"I can find no indications that this is anything other than it appears to be," he pronounced.  "There is one definitive test, of course, so let us see …."  He put the tip of his wand to his temple and extracted a silvery filament of thought which he carefully placed in the Pensieve.  It curled into the base of the cup and settled there like a puddle of mercury.  "Thus far it would appear to work.  Now – "

He prodded the thought gently with his wand.  It began to swirl rapidly and suddenly rose up, coalescing into the familiar figure of Harry – albeit a little younger.  His hair was standing on end and his robes untidy, and in his hands he clutched a folded piece of parchment.  The stubborn chin lifted mutinously.

 _"It's just a piece of old parchment, Professor!"_ he said in a tone Sirius and Remus were only too familiar with – one part truth, one part defiance, and two parts unspoken secrets.  _"One of the Weasley twins dropped it, but there's nothing on it – see?"_ And he held out the parchment, which was indeed blank. _"Seemed like a waste not to use it …."_

"If Fred and George ever dropped anything in their lives that they didn't mean to drop and cause trouble, then I'm a hippogriff," Bill said flatly before anyone else could react.

Snape snorted in a very disparaging way, but Professor Dumbledore chuckled softly and gave the Pensieve a gentle shake to send the memory of Harry sliding back into liquid silver again.  "I hardly think they gave it to a Slytherin willingly, dear boy," he said.

"Well, that explains where he got our map," Sirius remarked.  "I wondered, when you told me you'd confiscated it from Harry.  But where did the twins get it from in the first place?  It was confiscated from us by Filch before we left school!"

"I suspect they managed to retrieve it from Mr. Filch," Dumbledore replied.  "But I generally find it better not to enquire as to their actual methods, just as I found it better not to ask Harry to explain to me precisely where and when it was 'dropped' and how he found it."

"You mean he nicked it from the twins?" Tonks asked, sounding thoroughly delighted.  "That's got to be a first!"

"Oh, I should think there was rather more to the matter than simple theft," Dumbledore replied.  "Stealing for stealing's sake would hold no attraction for Harry.  It's pure speculation, of course, but I would imagine he had already established what the piece of parchment represented before he made the decision to, ah, _liberate_ it from its previous owners.  Well, that is beside the point.  I think we have safely established that this is indeed a working Pensieve."  He touched his wand to the thought in the bowl and lifted it back to his forehead, where it disappeared into the skin.  "What a remarkable gift."

"One which might even mean something, were Potter given to profound thought," Snape added sourly.

"A pity we can't add a few memories to it that might do him some good," Remus said quietly, glancing at Sirius.

Dumbledore's brows lifted.  "Now, that is an interesting notion."

Bill cleared his throat uneasily.  "Um – I hate to remind everyone of this, but this is _Ron's_ present to Harry.  I don't want to seem unhelpful, but it's not fair to hijack his present.  He was really pleased to find something unique."

"Unique?" Sirius let out a disbelieving chuckle.  "This is a once in a lifetime present for anyone!"

"You're right, though," Remus said to Bill.  "It's a lovely idea, but I won't be party to spoiling Ron's surprise."

"Sentimental fools," Snape commented.

"Perhaps we are, but they're just kids and something like a birthday present shouldn't be snatched by us to use as a tool for our own schemes."

"Neither of them are children any longer," Snape retorted, "and should Weasley continue to associate with Potter he will need every particle of adulthood he possesses."

"Gentlemen!"  Dumbledore didn't have to raise his voice; his tone was enough.  "On this occasion I concur with Bill and Remus.  Let Ron give his gift to Harry as he intended.  Later, there may be an opportunity to take advantage of it, but we shall see.  In the meantime, shall we commence planning our strategy?"  He looked at Sirius.  "Sirius, please refresh our memories as to the condition of the main house as it was when you last saw it."

 

xXx

 

"What are they doing down there?" Ron asked quietly, when his flow of reminiscences about Egypt had finally trailed off.

"Having a meeting," Harry said contentedly from where he was still resting on his friend's chest.  "We're supposed to be fixing up the Manor, remember?"

"Yeah ….  Do you reckon we should go downstairs?"

"Nah.  Unless you want to?"

"Nope.  I just wondered if they were going to come looking for us."

"They won't," Harry said, sure of this.  "Sirius and Remus know you're here, right?  They won't come up here, or not for a while anyway."

"It won't be much fun if someone walks in here and catches us doing anything."

Harry looked at him.  "What would they find us doing?"

"I'm not saying they _would_ find us doing anything," Ron said.  "But – just for example – they might catch us snogging."

"Not that they're going to," Harry agreed encouragingly.  Ron had big warm hands and one of them was gently cupping and stroking his neck.  "But yeah, they _might_.  Which could be a bit embarrassing."

"Yeah."

"But snogging's not the worst thing they could see, is it?"

"No.  I mean, it'd be worse if someone came in and we didn't have our shirts on."

"What, you mean like this?"  Harry sat up quickly and stripped his dark blue t-shirt off, tugging it over his head and nearly dislodging his glasses in his haste.

"Maybe.  Except that this is your room, so maybe they'd just think you were getting changed or something."

"But if you didn't have your shirt on either – " Harry slapped Ron's hands aside and briskly unbuttoned his shirt, "then they'd definitely think something funny was going on."

Ron had to sit up a little as well, so that Harry could strip the shirt off him.  That left him in a good position for pulling Harry closer.

"About the snogging," he said.  "In case you're not sure, _this_ is what I meant."

God.  Harry felt like he'd been holding his breath ever since Ron left England, waiting for this; the leisurely exploration of mouths, their hands roaming over each other's heat-sticky skin.  It was almost too much, he was painfully conscious of how tight his jeans suddenly felt, and how the breeze from the open window was at once too cool across his shoulders and yet almost too hot and thick to breathe.  His fingers went to the button on the waistband of Ron's jeans without him fully realising it, and only Ron's hand catching his wrist brought him up short.  They paused, foreheads resting together, panting.

Ron swallowed noisily.  "If we were, uh, found naked together …."

"Yeah – yeah, that's pretty, um …."

"Pretty incriminating - right?"

"Yeah …."

"So maybe we should … not get caught?"

"I'll lock the door," Harry said, and he scrambled across the bed to retrieve his wand from the nightstand.


	5. Chapter 5

"There you are," Sirius said casually, when Harry and Ron wandered into the garden an hour or so later.

Snape had left, but the rest of them were sitting just outside the little living room area, enjoying the last of the evening sun and if any of them noticed the interesting red mark on Harry's neck or that both boys had clearly showered very recently, they kindly chose not to mention it. 

"I left some salad for you both under a charm in the kitchen - did you find it?" Remus told them.

Ron didn't quite have Harry's poker face down pat yet; he pinked up a little.  "Yes, thanks, Mr. Lupin."

Remus smiled.  "We've had this conversation before.  Nobody gets away with making me feel old."

Ron grinned at him shyly, then suddenly remembered something.

"Oh!  This is Bill," he explained to Harry, indicating his older brother.  "Bill, this is Harry."

Bill hid his amusement as he solemnly shook hands with Harry.  "How are you doing, Harry?"

"Fine, thanks."

"Have you got my box?" Ron asked his brother, giving him a significant look.

"Nah," Bill said casually.  "I chucked it in the stream."

"My brothers are all jokers," Ron explained to Harry, huffing a little.

"Yeah?"

Sirius grinned at Harry's mystified expression. 

"I won't be joking next time," Bill warned Ron good-humouredly as he handed the wooden box over.  "This thing weighs a tonne."

"Is it - you know?"

"Seems to be."

"Great!  Thanks Bill."  Ron took possession of the box, but dithered for a moment.  He looked at Harry.  "Can we …?"

Apparently Harry understood Ron's cryptic comments as well as Ron understood his.  He grabbed his friend's sleeve.

"Come on, let's go for a walk."

"Watch out for the Lethifolds!" Sirius called after them genially as they headed down the path to the wooden area and the stream.

Harry blew a raspberry in response but didn't look back.

"Something tells me that if we don't keep the pair of them busy, the rest of the holiday is going to be full of little disappearing acts like that," Remus said.

"Sweet!" Tonks said, her nose wrinkling up in amusement.

"Easy for _you_ to say," he retorted.

"I believe there may be ways to keep their minds on the business at hand," Dumbledore remarked in a contemplative tone, and the twinkle in his eyes was decidedly mischievous.

 

xXx

 

It seemed to Harry that the best place to be on that sultry August evening was next to the stream.  On that side of the trees the sunlight was still strong, but a pleasant breeze was wafting in off the water and it was all very restful and peaceful.

Ron liked it too.

"Can you swim here?" he asked, wandering over to the edge of the bank.

"It's not deep enough most of the time," Harry said regretfully.  "Especially this time of year.  But you can splash around in it and cool off, so long as you don't try to climb the other bank.  That's where the edge of the wards is."

Ron put the box down in the grass, grinned at Harry and sat down on the edge of the bank.  He began to pull his shoes and socks off.

"Some of the rocks are a bit sharp," Harry warned him, but he flopped out and took his shoes off too.  They rolled up their jeans and cautiously stepped into the water.

"It's always colder than I expect," Harry remarked a few minutes later, when they'd splashed around a bit and returned to the bank to let their feet warm up.  "Sirius just changes into a dog and chucks himself in.  He says he can't feel it through his fur."

"Being an Animagus must be dead useful," Ron commented. 

"Yeah.  It's not easy though."  Harry decided to tell Ron about the books Sirius had given him and the extra lessons he'd been having.

Ron was fascinated.  "Do you reckon I could do it?" he asked.

Harry looked at him, surprised.  It had never occurred to him to ask his friend if he wanted to. 

"Are you any good at Transfiguration?"

"My marks aren't _that_ bad.  Okay, so I'm not Hermione, but - "

" _Nobody's_ Granger," Harry said impatiently.  "So what?  You don't have to be a genius to do well at stuff.  Stop comparing yourself to her."

"She's all right," Ron said defensively.

Harry huffed a little.  "Did I say she wasn't?  I'm just saying that she's in a different league and comparing yourself to her is pointless because it's two totally different scorecards.  Besides, sometimes being really bright isn't what you need."  He looked rueful for a moment.  "Sirius reckons I'm not patient enough and that's why I'm having trouble with it."

Ron grinned at him.  "You just want to be first to the Snitch as usual!"

Harry punched his arm gently.  "Shurrup!  I'll lend you the books if you like.  Try reading them at night - you'll sleep like a baby."

His friend sniggered.  Then he gave the box a nudge towards Harry.  "Are you going to open this?"

Harry's face lit up in a way Ron was pretty sure most other people never saw.  "Is it for me then?"

Ron rolled his eyes.  "Nah, I'm just hauling it around because I'm taking up weight-lifting!  _Of course_ it's for you - you didn't think I'd remember your birthday but not bother to get you anything, did you?"

"Yeah, but …."  Harry turned red and apparently changed his mind about whatever he was going to say.  "Thanks, Ron.  You really didn't have to."

"I know that.  Just open it, will you?"

Harry examined the box with interest first.  "Cool.  It's like one of those mini potions chests they sell at Bloodworths."

"I don't think the box really matches the thing inside," Ron said, scratching his nose.  "It was just a handy box about the right size, you know?  We packed it with stuff to stop it moving around."

He watched as Harry tugged open the stiff, tarnished brass catches and lifted the lid.  He still wasn't sure if he'd done the right thing by buying this, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time - 

Harry pulled back the top layer of felt and peered inside, blinking.  Then he reached in to take it out.  Ron got the impression that he hadn't realised what it was yet.

"Careful - it's really heavy - "

"Oh my God," Harry said blankly, setting the Pensieve between them on the grass.  "I … crikey.  Ron, do you know what this is?"

"Yeah."  Ron watched his face anxiously.  "It's a Pensieve - they've got one on display at the British Wizard Library in Diagon Alley.  I can remember Dad telling me about it years ago.  I've never used one though."

Harry couldn't take his eyes off the carved alabaster cup. 

"Dumbledore's got one too," he said.  He looked up and Ron saw his stunned expression.  "I always thought they were really rare.  I mean, I've never seen another one besides Dumbledore's anywhere."

"Bill was really surprised too.  We found it in a junk shop in Egypt - someone just chucked it out with a load of rubbish."  Ron smiled at him nervously.  "Do you like it?"

" _Like_ it?"  Harry looked at him helplessly.  "Ron, it's the most amazing thing I've ever been given.  But - you must have paid a fortune for it - "

"Nah, I didn't."  Satisfied that he hadn't made a big mistake, Ron relaxed.  "It was brilliant!  I had to barter for it and Bill reckons the shopkeeper didn't know what it was, because if he had then yeah, it could have been really expensive.  It's got some scratches, mate, but that's probably because it's old."

"I don't care - it's brilliant."  Harry lifted it into lap so he could examine the carvings.  "How old do you reckon it is?  I mean, it's not like they're just made and sold like statues, is it?"

"Bill reckons it's a couple of hundred years old at least.  I don't know how they're made."  Ron looked hopeful.  "I know what it does, but do you know how to use it?"

Harry looked at it uncertainly.  "Well … I've only looked at other people's memories, but Dumbledore told me how it's done."  He pulled his wand out of his jeans pocket and hesitated.  "I don't know what kind of memory to put in it."

"Anything," Ron said.  He stretched out on the grass, watching in interest.  "Something I haven't seen, like your birthday party maybe."

Harry wasn't sure that Ron needed to see people like Quintus Criggle sneering at him.  On the other hand, showing him Snape in his Dutch-cheese robes was undeniably attractive.  Or maybe not.  Then he had an idea and grinned.

"This you _have_ to see …."

He concentrated on a particular thought and touched his wand to his temple, imagining the wand gently pulling the memory out of his head.  It was an odd sensation to say the least, and odder still to have the memory disappear from his mind and reappear clinging to the wand-tip like a strand of candy-floss. 

Ron's eyes were huge as Harry quickly deposited the silvery filament in the bowl of the Pensieve.

"Doesn't that feel weird?"

"Yeah."  Harry suppressed a shudder.  There was a curious blank spot in his mind now.  He knew what was supposed to be contained in that single memory, but his brain couldn't summon either sounds or images of it.  He gave the liquid stuff in the Pensieve a quick poke with his wand.  "Here …."

The thought began to swirl rapidly and suddenly it surged up.  Three figures floated into the air above the bowl - Harry, Sirius and Remus all mounted on broomsticks and chasing each other around, shouting.  They were each holding a long stick with a club bit on the end and appeared to be flying no more than a foot or two off the ground.

 _"I told you we should levitate that ball!"_ Sirius was shouting _.  "Where did it go?"_

"What were you doing?" Ron asked Harry, watching as the image of Remus accio-ed a small ball and the three of them got into a scrum trying to hit it with the clubs.

"Sirius found a bunch of croquet mallets in Madam Hooch's shed," Harry replied, watching the memory play out.  "He thought we could play on broomsticks - a bit like polo.  But it didn't work like that!"

"What's polo?"

"A game Muggles play on horseback.  They race around hitting a ball with sticks … it's pretty dangerous."

"Doesn't sound as good as Quidditch."

"I don't think we were really playing anything like polo anyway.  It was sort of croquet with Quidditch rules.  Sort of."

Memory-Harry emerged from the scrum with some difficulty and in the process shunted Remus sideways.  Somehow, Remus ended up hanging upside down from his broom, which Sirius seemed to find tremendously funny, and while the two men were sorting themselves out Harry took possession of the ball and was busily engaged in walloping it through a small wire hoop set in the grass below him.

"You play to win even when it's a friendly game," Ron remarked, grinning.  "Is that a Slytherin rule or something?"

"Flint used to say there was no such thing as a friendly game," Harry admitted.

The brief memory came to an end and the figures slipped back into the bowl of the Pensieve.  After a moment Harry picked the thought up on the end of his wand and returned it to his head.  He was surprised at how much better he felt once it was there.

"I don't think I'll be doing that too often," he remarked, then he saw Ron's face .  "I don't mean it like that!  It's just an odd feeling, knowing that there's a thought missing.  A bit creepy.  But this'll be really useful."

"I thought it might be good for revising," Ron commented.

Harry looked at him for a moment, surprised, then laughed.  "I didn't think of that!  Yeah, it probably will.  Although can you imagine carrying this around in a school trunk?"

They both grinned.  Then Ron sighed and looked at his watch. 

"It's getting late.  We'd better go back to the house - I reckon I'll have to go soon."

Harry hid his disappointment with a struggle and nodded.  "Okay."

When they returned to the house, Tonks had already left and Bill was standing in the kitchen doorway talking to Sirius.  He was already wearing his cloak and he turned to them with a smile as they approached.

"Are you ready, Ron mate?  Mum'll be wondering where we are."

"I'm seventeen, not six," Ron grumbled.  "She doesn't always have to know where I am."

"She worries, that's all."  Bill turned back to Sirius.  "I'll be over after lunch tomorrow, then."

"Isn't Ron helping us fix the house?" Harry asked, looking from Bill to Sirius and back.

Bill grimaced.  "I have to talk to Mum and Dad first, Harry.  They're not keen on Ron getting involved with Order business."

"I'm seventeen!" Ron protested again, annoyed.  "I'm not going to spend the next three weeks de-gnoming the garden while everyone else is here - "

"I know that, okay?  But you can't just expect Mum to change her mind.  Let me talk to them."

"It's not exactly Order business," Harry pointed out.  "Not yet, anyway.  It's just … repairs.  If it was Order business I wouldn't be getting involved, would I?"

"Nice attempt to split hairs, but that won't wash with Mum," Bill said with a reluctant grin.  "I'll see if I can talk them round.  Dad'll be okay about it, I'm sure."

"Either way, we'll see you tomorrow," Sirius said.  He looked at Ron and smiled.  "Hopefully you too!"

When they were gone, Harry followed Sirius indoors and put the box containing his Pensieve on the kitchen table.  He dug his hands into his pockets moodily.

"What's the point in being seventeen if you can't do what you want?" he said to the general air.

"That's the price you pay for living with other people," Remus replied.  He swung the kettle over the range and began to get the teapot ready.  "You have to be considerate of their feelings and wishes if you're living in their house."

"I wasn't talking about me," Harry said, rather injured.  "Not exactly, anyway."

Sirius chuckled quietly, but Remus shook his head.

"Families and relationships of all kinds involve compromises, Harry.  If you want to be Ron's friend - and especially if you're going to be closer to him than that - then you have to accept his mother as she is and, more importantly, accept the role she plays in his life.  You're going to have to accept that sometimes she'll say "jump" and Ron will have to ask "how high?", regardless of whether he really wants to or not."

"She doesn't like me," Harry said moodily.

"Then you're really lucky," Sirius said, darkly amused.  "My mother _hated_ Remus and his family all despise me."

Harry gave him a startled look, then looked at Remus.  "I didn't think you had any family!"

Both men laughed at this.

"The stork left me in the cabbage patch," Remus said cheerfully, "and I was raised by gnomes and jarveys!"

"Well you never talk about them," Harry said defensively.  "And I know you lived on your own while Sirius was in Azkaban, so I just thought - "

"That I was an abandoned waif?"

"Abandoned anyway!" Sirius said slyly and got a remonstrating look from his partner.

"They pretty much washed their hands of me when I told them I was going to live with Sirius after school," Remus said calmly.  "There's not a lot else to say about it, really, except that there are definitely other Lupins in the world and you'll surely meet some of them one day.  Especially if you have any involvement with printing and bookbinding, since that's the family profession."

Harry let out an explosive breath, suddenly deeply upset and not entirely sure why.

"Does _everyone's_ family hate them?" he demanded angrily, and he stormed out of the kitchen.

The two men stared at each other when he was gone, and Sirius whistled softly.

"Oops!"

"It's a good thing he's not a girl," Remus observed ruefully.  "I'd be on the verge of making a crass remark otherwise."

"He doesn't even have _your_ excuse for being moody once a month," Sirius replied.

There was a soft footfall and Dumbledore quietly entered the kitchen. 

"It take it, from his rather precipitate exit, that Harry is upset about Ron possibly being unable to join us?" he asked.

"That and other things," Remus said, with a sigh.

"Ah well!  He _has_ had a rather stressful few weeks," the headmaster observed.  "I shall leave speaking to him about his problems with his magic for another day, I think.  As for young Ron, that matter will sort itself out.  I spoke to Arthur Weasley a week ago and he quite understands the need for Ron's involvement in the latter phase of  - hm, shall I venture a title?"  His eyes twinkled.  "Project Harry may be an unexciting name, but perfectly descriptive, don't you think?"

"I understand Molly's concerns," Sirius said tiredly.  "The more Ron is involved, the more of a target he becomes.  I don't know how aware he is of that."

"Should he join us, we shall be obliged to make him aware of it," Dumbledore said.  "But we will deal with that detail when a suitable opportunity arises.  In the meantime, gentlemen, I have some tiresome business relating to the school Board of Governors to attend to tomorrow morning, regardless of the Sabbath, and I believe I will be better able to stomach it after a full night's sleep.  I would advise the same for you as well."

"Lucius Malfoy?" Remus asked quietly.

"Indeed.  I really cannot see justification for his continued presence on the Board if Draco attends Durmstrang in September as anticipated."

Sirius detected an odd note in Dumbledore's voice.  "There's a doubt of that?"

"In order to meet entrance requirements, all pupils must attain a certain level of competency in written and spoken Russian," Dumbledore replied.  "My sources give me to understand that Draco is struggling, despite intensive lessons with a specialist tutor."

"And if he fails?" Remus asked after a moment.

"It is too late to enrol him at Beauxbatons, which would create a situation of considerable difficulty.  Of course, I could refuse to accept him back at the school given the cloud he left Hogwarts under, but in good conscience - "

"Good conscience!" Sirius said explosively.  "He tried to kill one boy and frame another for it!"

"He wasn't formally expelled, Sirius, and the matter was dropped when Lucius withdrew him - "

"It'll be picked up again pretty fast if Lucius tries to force you to take him back!" Sirius said angrily.

"Padfoot."  That was Remus - very quiet, but also very insistent.  "Padfoot, he's just a boy.  And he hasn't exactly had the best start in life, any more than Harry did."

"Harry had an excellent start in life before Lucius Malfoy's "master" decided to kill his parents!" Sirius snapped.  "You want to put a little would-be murderer and Death Eater in training right back in the same dormitory as Harry, Moony?  Are you mad?"

"He has to be taught somewhere, Padfoot," Remus said in the same quiet, almost gentle tone.  "He has as much right to an education as any other wizard."

"I don't believe this.  How can you stand there and defend him?"

"I'm not defending him!  I'm defending his _rights_ , Sirius, and he has a right to a proper education, regardless of how we feel about him and his father and his father's associates.  How is it Draco's fault that Lucius and Narcissa chose to sell themselves to Voldemort?  However much I dislike the boy personally, the fact is he's a product of his upbringing."

"Like you, in fact," Dumbledore told Sirius mildly and he watched the younger man turn white with anger and horror.  "You chose to distance yourself from your family, but the fact is, my boy, you are more like your parents and brother than you care to acknowledge.  I saw it in you from our very first meeting when you were a small child.  Sometimes I see it now you are a grown man.  And on more than one occasion I have noted the similarities between young Draco and yourself.  His face may be the face of a Malfoy, but his heart is the heart of a Black."

For a heartbeat, Remus thought Sirius might storm out of the room just as Harry had.  But Sirius had fractionally more self-control than his godson and stood his ground, although from the expression on his face it seemed unlikely that he would forgive Dumbledore's words anytime soon.

"And remind me again exactly why any of this means we should let him within ten miles of Harry?" he said tightly.

"We have an opportunity to change the course of Draco's life if we are but wise enough to exploit it," Dumbledore replied.

"You had six years to do that.  What makes you think you can do in one final year what you failed to do before?"

"A few months can make a world of difference," Remus said, watching the two of them warily.  "Six months ago you were barely on speaking terms with Harry."

"And it may simply come down to a matter of influence," Dumbledore added calmly.  "Ensuring that Draco comes under the influence of the right people."

"We have no control over the people who influence him!" Sirius said, exasperated.

"Not now, no.  But has it not occurred to you, Sirius, that should anything happen to Lucius between now and Draco's twenty-first birthday, by default you and Severus will be his nearest male relatives?  Which, you will admit, could be a very powerful position as, like Harry, he will not inherit the full extent of the Malfoy fortune until he reaches twenty-one."

"But Narcissa won't – "  Sirius stopped, suddenly remembering something Harry had said only a couple of days previously.  "Narcissa."

"Quite," Dumbledore said, watching his face narrowly.  "You are Narcissa's _paterfamilias_."

 

xXx

 

It was a hot and sticky night, and Harry did not sleep comfortably despite throwing open his bedroom windows and casting a cooling charm on his sheets.  After a couple of hours he swung his legs out of bed and sat up, reaching for his water jug.  It was empty.

Gritty-eyed and irritable, he grabbed the jug and made his way down to the kitchen.  It was cooler down there; he rinsed and filled the jug from the tap reserved for drinking water, then decided to get some juice from the pantry.  It was only when he returned and was sipping apple juice from a tall glass that Harry noticed something out of place.

He'd left the box containing his Pensieve on the kitchen table when he stormed out earlier.  The box was still where he'd left it, but the Pensieve itself was now sitting in the middle of the table and something silvery swirled inside it.

Someone had left a thought in it.

Harry's initial reaction was indignation.  This was _his_ Pensieve and other people had no business putting their thoughts into it.  Then common sense asserted itself; he remembered that there was only a few people who could have left it there, and none of them would have put a thought into the bowl without good reason. 

 _There was a thought in his Pensieve_.  Someone had left it there, knowing that it was Harry's and he would find it.

Harry pulled out a chair and sat down, eyeing the alabaster bowl.  After a moment or two, he put his glass of juice aside and pulled out his wand, giving the thought a little prod.  It swirled faster for a moment or two but seemed disinclined to do more than that.

Curiosity was definitely one of Harry's besetting sins.  If the thought had been left here for him, then he wanted to know why.  And there was really only one way to find out. 

He pulled the Pensieve towards him and leaned over the bowl, slowly, cautiously, until the tip of his nose touched the surface of the mercurial substance.

At once there was a sickening wrench and a sensation like falling, and –

"You have to promise you won't tell anyone about this."

Harry sucked in a sharp breath and looked around.  He was standing in a small stone-flagged courtyard somewhere and it was another brilliant summer day.  It might have been at Hogwarts, but he couldn't say with any certainty for it wasn't a place at the school that he remembered seeing before.

And he wasn't alone by any means.  Five people stood with him, three at points around the courtyard and another two on a short set of steps leading up to an ancient stone portico and doorway.  As Harry looked around wildly, wondering where and when he was, one of the people on the steps ran down into the centre of the courtyard and turned to face the other person.

It was Harry's father, James Potter.  He was unmistakeable; a face and figure Harry had come to know through a score of photographs and one brief encounter in another Pensieve two years ago.  He looked older than in Snape's memory, but still younger than in any of the pictures Harry possessed.  In fact, he looked to be about Harry's own age, seventeen.

The figure on the steps was equally recognisable.  Dressed in a very pretty, if somewhat short, blue dress, her auburn hair held back by a white alice-band, Harry's mother Lily was watching the other four with sceptical green eyes.

"I already said I promise," she said irritably, folding her arms across her chest.  "I don't know what's so important that you all had to drag me here to show me."

"Because it's a _secret_ , Evans," someone else said impatiently.

Harry looked at the speaker and did a slight double-take.  It was Sirius without a doubt; the young, handsome, arrogant Sirius of that previous memory, slightly older with longer hair and a tad less hauteur in his face, but still very much his princely teenaged self.

"If you open your mouth to MacDuff or anyone else about this one, we're all in big trouble, understand?" he continued.

Lily was unimpressed.  "If this is another of your jokes – "

"Definitely not a joke, Lily." 

That was Remus's voice, from the wraith-thin, gentle-eyed boy that Remus had been.  Harry studied him with fascination, for of all of them he had changed the most from Snape's earlier memory.  He was thinner, more – more _contained_ than Harry recalled from that memory, with different clothes and longer hair that was held back in a tail at the nape of his neck; hair that had just a few premature streaks of grey in it.

"We're not talking about the kind of trouble that could get us a few detentions with Filch," James put in.  "This is big-league stuff, the kind the Ministry would be interested in."

"Well yes," Lily said in a dry tone that made Harry's mouth twitch appreciatively.  "It's you, James, of _course_ the Ministry will be itching to know all about it.  And the _Daily Prophet_ , I expect, and _Witch Weekly_ and – "

Far from offended, James was grinning at her.

"Go ahead – mock me," he said in a fond tone, making Harry grimace.

"Oh, please," Sirius muttered, rolling his eyes.  "I may _retch_.  Just get on with it, you pathetic, arse-whipped prat."

"Oy!  No barracking from the audience," James retorted good-naturedly.  He raised a brow at Lily.  "Sure you're ready for this?"

"If it's a snake or anything with a million legs, you'll be a dead boy, not a Head Boy," she warned him.

"It's not a prank.  Seriously.  Nothing slimy or dead or Snivellus – "

"I'm leaving."

"Joke, Lily!  Honest!"

"Not funny," Lily told him, casting a grim glare at the smirking Sirius.  "Get on with it _now_ , or I leave."

"All right …."  James paused, taking a deep breath.  Then his eyes seemed to cross, his body went blurry and Harry, watching in amazement, noticed that the air around him seemed to become momentarily charged with static.

His teenaged father was gone, and in his place stood a young stag complete with a respectable pair of antlers.  When Harry glanced at his mother, her mouth had dropped open and her eyes were huge.

"Nice trick, don't you think?" Sirius said smugly.

The stag snorted softly and lowered its head.  Lily hopped down the steps and reached out very carefully to touch one of the lowered antlers.

"Prongs," she said wonderingly, and suddenly her face lit up.  " _Now_ I understand!  _Prongs!_ "

"It was that or _Horny_ , and we didn't think he needed that kind of encouragement," Remus said, with a fleeting smile.

"But if this is why James is called Prongs, why are you all called Wormtail, Moony and Padfoot?" she demanded.

Harry quickly looked around at the third person who had been standing in the courtyard all along.  Peter Pettigrew was still a small, rather plump, mousy-looking boy and he seemed to be a compulsive nail-biter.  But when everyone looked at him, he coloured up and stood up straighter, taking a couple of deep breaths.  Harry watched, fascinated, as he too went cross-eyed and blurry before shrinking into a fat, sleek-looking rat.

Remus picked him up quickly and held him up for Lily to see, pulling his long hairless tail out straight.

"Wormtail," he explained, and she nodded, reaching out.

"Here, give him to me." 

It was all Harry could do not to yell and snatch the rat back from his mother's hands, but this was a memory, something that had happened twenty years ago or more, and Pettigrew had yet to betray his parents and their friends ….

Lily tickled the rat's ears, smiling. 

"This must be really useful for you, Peter," she said in an approving tone.

The rat squeaked, but seemed more than content to sit docilely in her hands.  Harry was reminded of his first encounter with Ron, when Scabbers had placidly slept on Ron's lap for the greater part of the journey to Hogwarts.  It was more than a little sickening to watch in retrospect.

There was a kind of staticky rush in the air and suddenly the stag blurred and contorted and resolved itself back into James.  He looked flustered and a little put out.

"Hey!" he said rather plaintively to Lily.  She gave him a saucy smile and continued to stroke Wormtail's head with a light fingertip.  Sirius let out a snort of laughter - and quickly backed away from his best friend's glare.

"So what about Padfoot?" Lily asked, looking at him.

Harry had seen Sirius change countless times and was used to the effect being instantaneous, so it was odd to watch his godfather's younger self going through the same process as his father and Pettigrew – the careful, deep breaths, the crossed eyes, the slight blurring of form and, most of all, the peculiar static feeling in the air around him as it happened.  Apparently it took experience and practice to perfect the change, but after a couple of heartbeats there was the familiar form of Padfoot, the large, black dog Harry knew so well.

Lily eyed it with a thoughtful smile.  "So you're all Animagi.  I've read about it, of course.  Isn't the change supposed to reflect something about your personality?"

James cocked his head on one side, regarding her.  "That's the theory, yes."

"That explains a lot," she said cryptically.  But then she turned to Remus.  "So if James is a stag,  Sirius is a dog and Peter a rat – what are you?"

The atmosphere seemed to change and Harry was conscious of sudden tension.  There was another static blur in the air around Padfoot and the dog changed back into Sirius rather hurriedly, although Wormtail seemed quite content to stay where he was.  The other three boys looked at each other anxiously.

"This is why you _really_ can't say anything to anyone," James told Lily earnestly –

\- and just at that point the memory seemed to fade, the figures and surroundings becoming greyed out and distant, and with a wrench Harry found himself back in his seat at the kitchen table, staring at the swirling silver stuff in the little Pensieve.

For a moment or two his mind was frozen, stuck on the image of his parents and godparents.  Then Harry shuddered reflexively and picked up his glass of apple juice, draining it.

It was impossible to tell which of them had left the memory in the vessel.  It could have been either of them, and in any case that detail was unimportant to Harry.  It was the fact that one of them had deliberately left that memory there for him to find, and he wanted badly to know why they had done it.  What was so special about that particular memory?  Why make the effort to show it to Harry in such a clandestine way?  It didn't make sense to him.

After a moment or two he got up and put his empty glass in the sink, and picked up his water jug.  He needed to go back to bed; no one had specifically said so, but he thought they would probably have a busy day tomorrow.

Harry left the Pensieve and its contents where it was.  Presumably the owner would want the memory back.

 

xXx

 

When Harry wandered downstairs for breakfast the following morning, both Sirius and Remus were bustling around the kitchen, pouring cereal and brewing tea.  This was actually quite unusual; Remus was an early bird by nature, but Sirius tended to like a lie-in and would arrive for breakfast, bleary-eyed and unshaven, anything up to half an hour after Harry if he wasn't supposed to be somewhere.

The box containing Harry's Pensieve stood at the end of the table, looking for all the world as though it had been sitting there unopened since he abandoned it the day before.  Harry went to it at once and unlatched the lid, peering inside.  The Pensieve was snug in its layers of felt and the memory from the night before was gone.

He wondered if he should mention it.  But if he asked, he would have to admit that he'd seen the contents of the memory and then he might have to discuss it with them.  Harry didn't want to discuss his parents with Sirius and Remus.

But their eyes were on him and he couldn't _not_ mention the box.

"Um … do you know what Ron gave me for my birthday?" he said awkwardly.

"Yes."  Remus smiled at him.  "I'm afraid we saw it before you did.  Bill wanted Dumbledore to authenticate it before Ron handed it over."

"Oh."  He hadn't been expecting that.  "It works," he added rather unnecessarily.

"Good.  I don't know if you know this, but Pensieves are quite rare.  That's a truly extraordinary gift, Harry."

"Yeah, I know."

"Could be useful," Sirius remarked.  He was watching Harry's face closely, stirring his cereal idly with his spoon.

So the memory had been Sirius's.

"Yeah," Harry said, trying to sound casual.  "Ron reckons I could use it to revise – you know, by watching all my classes again whenever I need to."

Sirius chuckled.  "Not a bad idea!  Although maybe you'd have to pay attention the first time around anyway, hm?"

"I don't know." 

That was something that had puzzled Harry about his previous encounters with Pensieves.  Closing the box, he left it where it was and went to help himself to cornflakes and milk.  When he returned to the table he turned to Remus, who had always been his best source of information in the household.

"The last time I saw something in a Pensieve – " 

He stopped.  That had been Snape's memory of them with his father and Peter Pettigrew when they were fifteen.  Harry had never actually told them that he'd seen that, and given his feelings about the incident and Sirius's usual reaction to conversations involving James Potter, he didn't particularly want to mention it now.

"Go on," Remus encouraged him, when his silence became noticeable. 

"The last time, it seemed like there was stacks of stuff in the memory that the person couldn't have really seen," Harry said.

"What do you mean?"

Harry wondered how much he could tell them without actually telling them anything … awkward.

"You know how a Pensieve works, right?  I mean, you've used one?"

"I've seen one used," Remus said.

"Hm."  Harry prodded his cornflakes pensively.  "Well, you can do more than just make the thought show itself above the top of the Pensieve.  If you _touch_ it - the thought I mean - it pulls you inside it.  You see it like you were there when it happened."

Both men stopped eating, staring at him.

"I never heard that a Pensieve could do that," Sirius said after a moment.

"Dumbledore knows," Harry said with a shrug.  "I accidentally got pulled into some of his memories back in Fourth Year, and he pulled me out again."

He tried to eat his cereal in an unconcerned way, but it was difficult under their watchful eyes.

"So," Remus said slowly.  "You said that a person can't have seen everything that's going on in the memory.  You mean that when you go into the memory, you see more than - I don't know - their point of view?"

"Yes!"  Harry was relieved that he'd caught on so quickly.  "You see it like you're experiencing everything that's going on, like you were there.  But you're not just, um, stuck with that person, standing next to them the whole time.  You can move around and away from them, right?  And that's what I don't understand.  Because in the memory I saw there was stuff I know Snape couldn't have - "

He stopped sharply, annoyed with himself, but it was too late.  The name was out.

"So this was Snape's memory," Sirius said in a very careful, controlled tone.

"Yeah," Harry muttered.  He turned his attention back to his cereal, wondering if there was the faintest hope that they'd just let the matter drop.

Of course not.

"Well, you've told us that much now," Remus said dryly.  "Perhaps if you just told us the whole thing - "

"S'private," Harry mumbled around a mouthful of cornflakes, keeping his eyes trained on the milk jug in front of him.

 _"Private?"_

"Sirius!"  Remus warned.  He turned back to Harry.  "Under other circumstances I might accept that excuse, Harry, but I know Severus well enough to know that he'd never willingly show _anyone_ his memories in a Pensieve.  I also know how he feels about you, which makes it impossible for me to believe you saw that memory with his permission."

"Doesn't mean I can tell just anyone," Harry said.  Besides, he hadn't forgotten Snape's almost insane fury at the invasion of his privacy, the demand that Harry tell no one.

"Oh, we're _just anyone_ now, are we?" Sirius retorted, aggravated.

"No!" Harry said, more than a little aggravated himself.  "But it was bad enough having Snape go ape at me about it.  I don't need you yelling about it too!"

"I am not going to _yell_ \- "

" _Ape?_ " Remus's astonished voice cut across Sirius's indignant retort.  "Excuse me?"

There was a confused pause.  Harry coloured up.

"Something Dudley used to say," he muttered, embarrassed.

"I see.  Well, do let's try _not_ to use your cousin Dudley's more refined expostulations around other wizards, shall we?" Remus said, with awful sarcasm. 

Sirius got up in a hurry and went to wash up his plate and mug.  Harry blinked at Remus, alarmed and bemused in equal measure by the sudden change of mood.  Refined expostulations?

"Um … okay," he said weakly.

"Because believe me, Harry, no matter how bad that charming term sounds to Muggles, it sounds a dozen times worse to a wizard.  Are you aware of just how great an insult it is to call anyone with magic an ape?  It's worse than calling them a Mudblood or a half-breed.  Some purebloods reserve the term for Muggles."

He hadn't known that, but he did now. 

"Sorry," he muttered, reeling mentally from this unexpected confrontation.

"So I should think.  Now, you were saying?"

"I wasn't - "

"You were," Remus said, in the same sharp, implacable tone.  "But by all means, take your time.  We have all morning if necessary."

Harry looked to Sirius for help but his godfather kept his back turned.

"You won't like it," he said, trying to summon a little defiance.

Remus's expression suggested that not only was he unimpressed by this, but what he _really_ didn't like was being kept waiting for answers.  Harry had a hard time meeting his eyes, and when he did he noticed that instead of being their usual light brown, they were a disturbing amber.

Oh.  Before he could stop himself, his own eyes went to the moon phase calendar that hung on the kitchen wall a few feet away.  He'd lost track of the lunar cycle while he was at Hogwarts; it was a full moon the following night. 

"Yes, Harry," Remus said with heavy irony.  "It's my time of the month.  That's not an excuse for you to evade the question, though."

It was a constant if unwritten rule in the household that Remus was not to be put under undue stress just before the full moon; his temper was far too chancy.  And however mild and gentle he might seem most of the time, Harry knew it was a false image.  Thanks to the 'beast within' there were moods, drives and physical strength under Remus's skin that were not human, and those differences were at their most obvious in the days directly around the full moon.

Knowing this, he didn't want to get any further into the subject of Snape's memory in the Pensieve, but Remus's expression was saying that he wouldn't settle for anything less, leaving Harry in a quandary. Fortunately Sirius returned to the table with a fresh mug of tea in his hand.

"What makes you think Snape couldn't have seen everything in the memory?" he asked levelly, taking a seat next to Remus again.

Harry stirred his cornflakes, wondering how to tell them anything about the memory without causing a row.  He didn't think it was possible.

"He didn't know you were a werewolf before he saw you at the Shrieking Shack, did he?" he said to Remus finally.  "He wouldn't have gone there else."

"No, I don't think he could have known," Remus said.  "I really don't believe he would have gone there at the full moon else."

"When I saw that memory of Snape's, you were all there and you were talking about you being a werewolf.  So if he didn't overhear you talking about it, how did it get into the memory?"

"We wouldn't have been talking about it in public, Harry," Sirius pointed out dryly.

"You were," Harry said sharply.  "You'd all of you just come out from taking your DADA OWL and you were talking about a question about werewolves.  You picked on Pettigrew because he wasn't sure if he'd answered the question right.  Remus told you and Dad to keep your voices down.  And then you were going on about the full moon."

There was a long, uneasy pause.  Harry tried to concentrate on his breakfast, but he could imagine what they were thinking.

"I don't know exactly how Pensieves are supposed to work," Remus said eventually.  "But it seems extraordinary that you could have got all of that from a memory of Snape's."  It seemed to Harry that he was struggling to maintain his usual cool, scholarly tone.  "The material you see is just the thought extracted, without context, as far as I'm aware.  There's never been any suggestion that the Pensieve enhances it at all."

Harry looked up at  him.  "If you go into a thought in a Pensieve, you see everything," he said.  "It's not vague or anything.  It's completely clear, as though you're reliving it."

Another pause.  Remus picked up his mug of tea, deep in thought, but didn't drink.

"Well, there's one possible explanation," Sirius said, after a minute or two.  "When I trained as an Auror, we were taught that most people experience life around them without being aware of much beyond what's immediately relevant to them.  It's a kind of subconscious filtering – all the information from your senses goes into your brain, but then it's sorted out and you actually only notice what you really need to notice.  So if you go to Diagon Alley, you can be hearing a score of people talking at once from various distances around you, but your brain will only make sense of the voices nearest to you.  You'll only be aware of the shop windows directly in front of you, even though your vision may be good enough for you to see halfway down the street, and although you can see what everyone around you is wearing and doing, you're unlikely to actually notice it unless something grabs your attention.  Aurors have to learn to be aware in a different way; we're trained to be more alert, to pay more attention– we apply a different filter, for want of a better explanation."

"So even though Snape may not consciously have been aware of everything, his brain nevertheless received the information and stored it," Remus said and he nodded, satisfied.  "That's a really good idea, Padfoot.  The brain does have the capacity to store a lot more information than we consciously use, after all.  That's been known for a long time."

It made sense to Harry too, much to his relief.  He'd been afraid he would have to discuss the memory in much greater detail, which he felt sure could only have been disastrous. 

"That explains why Professor Dumbledore says it's easier to spot things when his thoughts are in the Pensieve.  He sees everything, not just the bits his brain thinks he needs to see."

"You'd also see it without an emotional filter," Sirius pointed out.  "How you feel about something can censor how you remember it as well, but if the thought goes into the Pensieve, complete and unadulterated, you see exactly what happened, not what you think happened or prefer to remember."

That was an interesting point.  Harry wondered if Snape had ever bothered to re-experience that particular memory through the Pensieve, or whether he'd dumped it there without bothering to look at it.  And not for the first time, he wondered why Snape had removed that memory before their Occlumency lessons.  He could understand that the Potions Master might not want him to see it accidentally, but surely there had to be far worse memories in a former Death Eater's head than a bullying incident from when he was a boy.

Although he had to admit that he wouldn't voluntarily allow Snape or anyone else see the memories of his relatives bullying him, either.

"You'll still see it without context, though," Remus remarked, between sips of his tea.  "And that's a problem if you're looking at someone else's thoughts."

There was a pointedness to the way he said this that made Harry's hackles rise a little.  He didn't want to quarrel with either of them, though, not as he'd successfully avoided discussing the memory thus far, so he deflected it with another question.

"Would that be true with Legilimency too?"

Remus's shrugged.  "Possibly.  It's much the same thing, after all – the difference is that you go directly into someone's head to access the thoughts."

"That's a question you could ask Dumbledore when you next see him," Sirius suggested.

Another silence, one which was still uncomfortable.

"So what are we doing today?" Harry asked, looking from one to the other of them.  "When do we start on the main part of the house?"

"After lunch," Sirius replied.  "We've got church first."  He put his mug down.  "You might be better off asking what we're doing tomorrow morning."

Harry eyed him warily.  "Okay.  What are we doing tomorrow morning?"

"I'm glad you asked that," Sirius said, with a slight grin.  "You and I have to visit Diagon Alley.  You need to take your Apparition test, and I need to drop off my resignation with Kingsley."

Harry blinked.  "You're resigning?" he said.  "Why?"

"Too many other things to do in my life now I'm the head of the family.  Besides, it's not like I need to work for a living anymore."

"What other sort of things will you be doing though?"

"Aside from fixing the house?  Attending the Wizengamot for a start," Remus told him.  "And for the foreseeable future there's Order business for both of us."  His mouth was quirking slightly and he'd relaxed at last, although Harry got the impression that he had mixed feelings about Sirius's future plans. 

Harry suddenly remembered Sirius's 'dynastic' duty.  Of course.  Presumably that meant there would be an addition to the household in the not-too-distant future.

His appetite suddenly gone, he pushed his bowl containing a last few cornflakes away.

"I'll get dressed," he muttered.

 

xXx

 

"Well," Remus remarked rather thinly, when Harry had left the kitchen.  "Now we know.  Or at least we know part of it.  I suppose it's possible that the memory Harry saw didn't include the whole incident."  Sirius looked at him incredulously, and he sighed.  "No, I suppose not."

"It explains just about every smart remark he's thrown at me about James for the last two years," Sirius retorted.  "And no wonder, if he saw _that_ in isolation!  I should wring that oily git's scrawny neck - in fact, I think I will - "

"Sirius.  Let's not get carried away and gloss over the fact that Harry saw that memory without permission.  It's not as though Severus deliberately - "

"Did he try to explain it to Harry?" Sirius interrupted angrily.  "Did he bother to point out that we were all fifteen and pig-ignorant?"

"Why _should_ he?" Remus demanded.  "It's _his_ memory, Sirius!  He's hardly obliged to provide a running commentary to any inadvertent observers, is he?  Especially given the way he feels about us."

"Harry was a teenager, dammit!  What the hell was Snape playing at, leaving a bunch of memories in a Pensieve where a kid like Harry could find them?  Did the idiot seriously think he wouldn't take a look?"  Sirius let out a bark of mirthless laughter.  "He saw that one I left here last night, I could tell!  Nosy as a kneazle, Harry is, just like his dad."

"'Curiosity killed the cat', the Muggles say," Remus said grimly, and he raised one hand to rub his eyes.  "Well, now that we know, we can start some kind of damage limitation perhaps."

"Because he's so much more willing to discuss it with us now than he was before!"  Sirius saw his partner's face and at once felt a rush of guilt.  "Dammit - I'm sorry, Moony.  You're right, of course.  And at least we're no worse off now than we were before.  That conversation could have been a lot nastier."

"I really don't think Harry wanted to fight with us about it, which is an improvement in itself," Remus observed.  "Perhaps we should just … avoid the topic in conversation for now, and try to continue with the Pensieve plan."  He got up and reached for the box, which was still on the corner of the table.  "I'll put this in the sitting room for now, I think.  And perhaps it's a bit brazen of me, but since he's obviously not entirely unreceptive I may leave something in there for him to find later."

"Anything in particular?" Sirius asked, raising his brows.

"I'm sure I'll think of something suitable," Remus replied evasively.

 

xXx

 

It began to feel to Harry as though it might be an unsettled, grumpy sort of day. 

He willingly attended church in the hopes that he might see Ron there, but he was destined to be largely disappointed.  The Weasleys were there – Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Percy, Ron and Ginny anyway – but Ron's mother had a face like a thundercloud and the rest of the family looked decidedly on edge.  Harry had no opportunity to speak to his friend; Mrs. Weasley bustled her family out of the church and away before Sirius's little party made it to the door, and then Harry himself had a Confirmation class with Father Marius until lunch.

For the first time Harry made a sincere effort to listen to the information the priest was trying to impart (anything to get it over with, now that he had agreed to do it) but there was so much on his mind that he couldn't honestly say he made much progress.  He was too distracted and made a terrible mess of the Latin passages he was supposed to be translating.

The elderly priest of the church, Father Ignatius, would have gently reproved Harry for his lack of concentration, but Father Marius matter-of-factly closed his books and put them aside.

"We're obviously not going to get anywhere today," he said calmly.  "How about you take this home and work on it later?"

"Sorry," Harry said with a sigh.

  

  1. "You look like you have a lot on your mind anyway."
  



Harry hesitated.  He wasn't about to discuss Ron with the young priest, no matter how likable he was, because he already knew the Omnis Arcanum Church's standpoint on homosexuality.  But Ron was not the only thing on his mind right now.

"How do your lot – "  He stopped, flushing, and gave the curate an embarrassed look, but Father Marius only smiled.  "How does the church view people who have to – um – make special arrangements to have kids?" he asked.

Father Marius leaned back in his chair, folding his hands across his stomach thoughtfully.

"I assume you mean your guardian, Sirius Black?"

"Well … yes.  You know about that, then?"

"Not directly, but I know it's a measure he may have to take if he wants to continue his family line.  I take it this is more than a theoretical situation?"

Harry looked mildly alarmed.  "I don't want to get him into trouble with Father Ignatius – "

Father Marius raised his hand, interrupting him.  "Relax!  Anything you say to me stays with me, Harry.  You have my solemn word on that."

Harry relaxed a little.  "You know about him and Remus, then?"

Father Marius grinned.  "I'd have to be fairly unobservant not to, don't you think?"

"I dunno – _I_ didn't know until a few months ago."

"Oh well ….  I did meet them a few times when I was younger, and they were rather less discreet  about it then than they are now.  So yes – I am aware of their personal situation."

"You can use the word "married", I won't flinch," Harry said dryly.

"Except that I won't, because they aren't married."  A tiny warning note entered the young priest's voice.  "Marriage is a sacrament, a unique contract between a man and a woman, blessed by God and enshrined in our oldest laws, Harry.  Your godparents are _handfasted_ – a minor legal contract which has never been fully tested in the Wizengamot's high court.  It's not at all the same thing."

That nettled Harry a little, although he knew he shouldn't have expected to hear anything else from a representative of the Wizard Church.

"It's two people swearing to spend their lives together," he said.  "What's the difference?"

"I think I just told you the difference," Father Marius replied.  "Marriage has the blessing of God and the Wizengamot.  The man and woman who join their lives under the auspices of the church know that their union is protected not only by the laws of God but also by the laws of the wizarding world.  There are a great many benefits to it.  If it was just "two people swearing to spend their lives together", then why bother at all?  Anyone could do that.  There would be nothing special about it."

"There must be something special about handfasting or why would anyone bother to do it?" Harry demanded.

"Father Ignatius would tell you that there's nothing special about it at all and it has no value in our community."

"I didn't ask Father Ignatius!"

Father Marius looked at him for a moment or two.

"What do you want me to say, Harry?" he asked gently.  "Our church doesn't recognise two men or two women choosing to share their lives together in a facsimile of marriage.  It recognises one union and one union only; that between a man and a woman.  It lays down the specific parameters for that relationship.  Firstly, that it shall be a union unto the death of one or both participants.  Secondly, that the union is intended for the help and mutual comfort of the participants, and for the procreation of children.  Thirdly, that the union shall be loyal and exclusive, which is to say monogamous, on the part of both participants before the eyes of God and the community.  That's it.  That's the basic framework that supports family life in the magical community.  It's the framework that the Wizengamot has based family law upon for over a thousand years; possibly longer."  More gently still, he added, "It's the law your parents were married under twenty years ago."

"We're not talking about my mum and dad!" Harry said angrily.  "We're talking about Sirius and Remus – they've been together even longer than that."

"It makes no difference in the eyes of the church," Father Marius said with a sigh.  "I suspect it wouldn't make much difference in the eyes of the law, either, in the current political climate."

"So you're saying they're living in sin?"

"That would be the official church viewpoint, to say the very least."

Harry fumed for a moment or two, then gave Father Marius a sharp look. 

"That's the _official_ viewpoint," he said.  "What's yours?"  When the priest eyed him warily, he tried a smile.  "I promise anything you tell me won't go any further."

Father Marius still hesitated, then shrugged slightly.  "I would say that I think I've seen less honest relationships," he said.  "I've seen couples married here who take their commitments to each other far less seriously and indulge in behaviour far less Christian.  On those grounds alone I won't judge your godparents.  But you know, Harry, my viewpoint doesn't make any difference."

It made a great deal of difference to Harry, but he wasn't ready to say so.

"So what _does_ the church think about Sirius having to make some kind of arrangement to have a kid?" he asked.

Another hesitation.

"That's a tricky one," Father Marius admitted.  "It's a perfectly legal arrangement, of course, and it has considerable precedent behind it.  I suppose you know that magical law won't allow a man to divorce his wife, or vice versa, simply because one spouse is infertile?  The church holds the same position; infertility is the will of God, after all.  That said," and he gave Harry a ghost of a smile, "the church _can_ be pragmatic on some issues.  It's accepted, for example, that the infertility of a marriage can cause a great deal of grief and put strain on the partnership, and that in some cases it can be detrimental to relationships within the family as a whole.  Also, in the distant past, the church held the view that death of a spouse didn't necessarily render the widow or widower free to marry again, which could put people in a very difficult position.  So - you could say that a compromise position was devised.  Officially, the church disapproves of surrogacy contracts because it involves adultery, but _if_ a contract is entered into and the resulting child is accepted into the family by both husband and wife, the church … turns a blind eye.  The parents, the surrogate and especially the child aren't punished for it.  Does that make sense?"

All of this was light years away from Sirius's brisk reference to the surrogate getting a hefty fee and the snobbish satisfaction of having a child raised by a First Family, of course, but Harry thought he understood what Father Marius was saying.  Not that he was entirely convinced by it, but that was nothing unusual for Harry where wizard laws and customs were concerned.  He could see a number of holes in the 'church's position framing wizard law' argument for a start (what input did the majority White Goddess Pagans have into wizard law, for instance?) but that wasn't what he was interested in right then.

"So Sirius is okay to do this?" he pushed.

"I wouldn't go quite that far," Father Marius replied wryly.  "Obviously, the church's viewpoint has to be that Sirius should marry a suitable lady and produce heirs the normal way.  But he wouldn't be the first wizard to make use of that law for his own ends and I daresay he won't be the last.  And our church doesn't punish the child for the sins of its parents."

Harry gave him an interested look.  "So what if a kid is illegitimate?  I mean, I suppose any kid of Sirius's born like that would be illegitimate."

"Not at all," Father Marius said.  "Under wizard law, a child is only deemed illegitimate if its _paterfamilias_ refuses to acknowledge it and permit it to carry the family name.  It wouldn't necessarily make the child in question a direct heir – that would depend on the circumstances - but he or she would be a legitimate member of the family and have certain rights of inheritance enshrined in wizard law."

"Seriously?"  Harry was intrigued.  "So even if – if, say, my mum and dad hadn't been married, I could still have inherited?"

The priest smiled a little.  "Only if your mother presented you to your grandfather and he acknowledged you as your father's son.  He could do that even if your father didn't want him to.  And if there were no other heirs and he had acknowledged you, you would still have become _paterfamilias_ in due course.  That's not unheard of."

"But what if he didn't?"

"Then you wouldn't legally be considered a member of the Potter family.  Your mother or her family would have had to raise you, and wizard custom would dictate that you use her family name – I mean, you _could_ call yourself Potter, but it still wouldn't make you a member of the family and most wizard institutions wouldn't recognise you under that name.  And you wouldn't be allowed to refer to James Potter as your father, because under wizard law he _wouldn't_ be your father."  Father Marius looked grave.  "The church disapproves of such an act on the part of a _paterfamilias_ though, Harry.  It's considered a virtue for him to acknowledge the very least and most vulnerable of his descendents and make proper provision for their welfare."

Harry nodded, but his mind was scampering ahead to a quite different thought: What if both families rejected a baby?  What if the father's family refused to acknowledge a child and then the mother's refused to accept it too?  Or what if one half of the family was Muggle and didn't want a wizard child?

Was that how Tom Riddle had ended up in a Muggle orphanage?


	6. Chapter 6

After lunch, Harry helped Remus clear up the kitchen and tidy the living room while they waited for the rest of the 'team' to arrive.

"Um … is this a good time for you to be doing something like this?" Harry asked carefully, having watched Remus visibly reining in his temper more than once.  But Remus didn't snap at him for asking the question.

"Actually, this is the best possible time for me to be doing something like this," he replied, throwing a couple of cushions back into place on the sofa.  "All my senses are at their highest and my reflexes are sharp.  Which is why I'll be the one taking front position when we go in.  Of course, I'll be useless the day after tomorrow, but hopefully by then we'll have a better feel for what to expect."

"So where to do we start?"

Sirius walked into the room then, carrying a couple of rolls of parchment under one arm.

"I can answer that," he said, and he took the parchment to the table by the window, where he unrolled the sheets and spread them out.  "Come and have a look at this.  While you were up at Hogwarts, I tried to make a basic sketch plan of the Manor's layout as I remember it."

Harry and Remus joined him and stared down at the plans curiously. 

"I didn't know there was a courtyard in the middle," Harry remarked after a moment.  "I can't see it from my bedroom window - all I can see is roof. "

"The view from above is misleading," Sirius replied.  "There are concealment charms all over the house and grounds, to make it look like something else.  Besides, although it looks like there's a nice clear space in the middle - " he pulled another drawing across, this time of the first floor, and circled his finger over the empty central space,  "somewhere in the middle here are a number of concealed rooms.  At least, I _assume_ they're in the middle, but it's hard to be sure.  Structurally, it makes sense for them to be there because it gives four solid walls to construct the charms against."

"Presumably there's no indication of their existence when you're standing in the courtyard?" Remus asked, interested.

"Oh lord, no!  In fact, you could fly a broomstick around in there, and out via the roof, and never know anything was there.  I'm just speculating."

"I suppose it makes sense, but why do you think there are hidden rooms at all?"

"I only know they exist through eavesdropping and hearsay," Sirius admitted. "There's a workroom in the cellars as well - you heard Snape mention?  It probably has pretty stiff wards.  You only put a workroom in the cellars if you need earth around you to dampen vibrations, which means it was almost certainly set up to contain any dangerous accidents."

"Lovely.  Since Severus is familiar with it, we should save that one for him to investigate."  Remus traced a finger over the cellars beneath the kitchens.  "Wine cellars here?"

"Yep.  Old Pettifer was most insistent that I should find out what's in there."  Sirius shot a grin at his partner.  "He seemed to think my grandfather might have been importing Chinese aphrodisiac potions and hiding them in there."

"Would your granddad do that?" Harry demanded, grinning.

"Wouldn't surprise me.  Pettifer would know, he's a wine buff like _your_ grandfather was.  And his family have been involved in import/export for centuries.  If something was being smuggled into the country, he'd have the contacts to know about it.  That would explain how Henry Potter brought six cases of Pompey champagne into the country without the whole Wizengamot knowing about it."

"Henry and Pettifer would neither of them have done anything illegal," Remus said firmly.

"Never said they would."  Sirius smiled.  "There are ways of doing things quietly that are still quite legal."

"And it's equally possible that Henry simply carried it in his diplomatic baggage.  It didn't seem to me that Pettifer had prior knowledge of it when we were all knocking it back at Harry's party."

"It couldn't have been.  James told me that champagne was bought specifically for Harry's majority celebrations, and it must have been the same champagne because Drooby had standing orders about it and reminded _me_.  Henry hadn't been out of the country for five years by the time Harry was born."

"I refuse to believe that Henry Potter of all people would do anything that smacked of smuggling!" Remus snapped.

"I'm not saying he did," Sirius said in a carefully mild tone.  "All I'm saying is that it must have slipped under someone's nose without them noticing because, as Pettifer said, Pompey champagne almost never makes it to England and when it does there's a media circus about it.  No one knew about those six cases!  Didn't you see the by-line in the _Prophet_ about Pompey champagne being served at Harry's party?  I'm willing to bet Mo MacDuff had a dozen owls yesterday asking whether there was any left and if the Potter estate would consider auctioning it – "

"She'd better not; it's _my_ champagne," Harry said, deciding that taking a risk and breaking in on this was preferable to watching Remus deliberately escalate a quarrel.  "Now can we talk about something else?  Wine is pretty boring."

He had to brace himself under Remus's amber-eyed glare for a moment, then his godfather relaxed and snorted.

"Get used to it!  Fine wines and cravats are part of your heritage."

"I was thinking that if I manage to off Voldemort, then maybe Madam Malkin would design me some formal robes with shirts that don't have collars …."

Sirius barked a laugh and even Remus grinned. 

"Some hope!  Sirius, let's have another squint at that plan of the ground and first floors …."

"How did you get into the house when you first came back here?" Harry asked Sirius.

"Through the front entrance."  Sirius traced a finger over the relevant spot on his plan.  "It's the safest approach to any wizard building when you're not sure if the wards recognise you.  Usually the worst that will happen is they reject you and maybe transport you to the edge of the grounds, whereas if you try to break open a side door or window you run the risk of being dumped in an oubliette or somewhere equally nasty."

"So are we going to try that today?"

"No need," Remus put in.  "The house is open to us now, so we'll probably use one of the inner doors – either the one on the landing which leads to the first storey, or the one at the back of the pantry which leads into the hall adjacent to the Breakfast and Morning Rooms."

"Which doesn't mean we won't need to be careful," Sirius said.  "Personally, I think we should start with the ground floor and work up, although that probably means we'll have to tackle the library sooner rather than later.  Unless …."  He tapped a finger on the corner of the kitchen section.  "I don't have a clear memory of where all the external doors are, but there should be at least a couple out into the central courtyard, so we might be able to use that as a shortcut."

"If it hasn't turned into a jungle," Remus said dryly.

There was a sudden _whoosh_ and clatter from the kitchen as someone Flooed into the house.  It was quickly followed by another.

"Sounds like everyone's arriving," Sirius said, straightening up, and as he did so Emmeline Vance walked into the room, followed by Tonks.

"Afternoon all!" Tonks said brightly.  She had short blue curls today, and was dressed in purple jeans and a t-shirt blazoned with the logo of a wizard heavy metal band called Accio Kedavra.  "Are we all ready to get eaten by the Black family mausoleum?  Mum'll be here in a minute too, Sirius – she reckons it can't hurt to have another Black in attendance."

"She's probably right.  Thanks for coming, Emmeline."

"I nearly brought my mop, bucket and dusters," the dark-haired witch said dryly.  "I haven't forgotten Grimmauld Place when you first opened it up for the Order."

"This house is probably worse, I'm afraid, but at least we don't have to live or eat in there yet."  Sirius ran a hand through his hair and his brow furrowed.  "I wonder who else will be able to make it?  I'm not expecting Dumbledore or Snape, but – "

"Kingsley won't be able to come either," Tonks put in.  "He got called in this morning.  Mad-Eye might though.  And Bill's supposed to be coming, isn't he?"

Hard upon her words, there was another _whoosh_ from the Floo followed quickly by a second.  Moments later Bill Weasley walked in … closely followed by Ron.

Harry felt a surge of emotion in his chest as he exchanged grins with his friend.

"Persuaded your mother, did you, Ron?" Remus asked, amused.

"Don't ask," Bill advised him in a weary voice.  "Did you see her face at church this morning?  That was nothing, _nothing_ , compared to the row last night and over breakfast this morning.  At this rate, Dad's going to be living in his shed until Ron goes back to school.  And Dumbledore's name is mud to Mum at the moment."

Harry stared at Ron, who was looking a bit pink about the ears and chagrined. 

"What's Dumbledore got to do with it?" he asked, astonished.

But Ron only shrugged.  "Search me, mate.  I kept well out of the way."

The sound of the Floo one final time broke in on any further questions, and after a moment Andromeda Tonks walked in, wearing a masculine-looking checked shirt and a pair of old jodhpurs.  She stopped in the doorway and surveyed the room, head aristocratically high. 

"I felt sure you'd all be hard at work by now," she remarked disapprovingly.  "Time's running on!"

 

xXx

 

Eight people cramming into one admittedly larger than average pantry would have been humorous under any other circumstances, but at least Harry now knew why the wall covered with shelves full of empty jam and pickle jars made him itch when he stood next to it.  Sirius removed the wards and illusion from it and an old door painted an ugly green emerged instead.  Then he took a big iron ring from a hook on the wall, selected one of the many enormous keys dangling from it, and unlocked the door.  It swung inwards, letting a draft of stale, damp air back into the pantry.

"Last chance for anyone who wants to bolt," Remus remarked.

"Mind the step," Sirius said more prosaically, and he stepped over a three inch wide ridge in the doorway.  "These are storage rooms.  We're still in the servants' wing.  _Lumos generalis!_ " 

Lights flickered into life along the walls.  They were in a very dank and unappealing windowless passage.  The wall to their left was blank along its length from the floor to the low ceiling, with nothing but small lamps on brackets at intervals; the right-hand wall was interspersed with doors.

"There's another door at the other end and a staircase," Sirius continued.  "The stairs go down into the cellars and up to the Lesser Gallery in front of the dining room. 

"The door leads to the small hall in front of the morning room and breakfast room, if I remember correctly," Andromeda remarked.  "Also the family stairs to the first floor.  What's in these storage rooms?"

"Old furniture," Remus said.  "We didn't touch any of it when we moved in, since we didn't know what sort of condition it was in and we didn't need anything we couldn't borrow from the main house or the old lock-up we kept after we left school.  It's been there over ten years - it can wait."

"I can't imagine these conditions will have done any of it any good," Emmeline Vance remarked.  "Smells like the damp got in."

There was a tiny splash.

"It has," Bill said wryly.  "There must be a door or window around here somewhere, unless something has leaked."

"Might be a cracked pipe," Sirius said.  "Wonderful.  Well, we did have a hard winter last year.  Keep your eyes skinned for an exit into the courtyard, people.  Cracked pipes - fantastic.  Let's hope there isn't too much damage to the hardwood floors."

"I think there's a door here," Harry said unexpectedly, and when the others looked at him he was running his hand over the left-hand wall.  "It feels a bit like the illusion you put on the door at the top of the stairs, Sirius," he added and he began running his fingers up a straight line.  "I can't see it, but I can feel it - there's a door jamb here and wood under the paint."

Bill joined him, running expert fingers over the spot.  "Yep - feels like there's something there," he commented and he waved his wand over the wall, muttering an incantation.  The wall shimmered and slowly an old door painted the same unattractive olive green as the walls appeared.  There was no lock or even a handle, and it looked just as though someone had painted the wall straight across without knowing the door was there.  Perhaps they _hadn't_ known.

"Nice one, Harry!" Bill said, with a grin.  "We could use you in the Valley of the Kings."

"Jammy git," Ron joked, grinning at his friend.

"It's been cursed shut," Bill noted.  "And the paint in the hinges won't help.  Still, I've seen worse.  Want me to get it open now, Sirius?"

"Yeah, thanks Bill."

"Why would they hide it?" Tonks wondered.

"Why would my family do anything?" he replied.

"My family too," she reminded him cheerfully.

"Not something to be proud of," he said sourly.  "That reminds me, Andromeda - I was wondering if you wanted to be re-inherited and welcomed back into the bosom of the family?"

"I was never formally disinherited any more than you were," she replied.  "If you're having a moment of un-Black-like generosity, though, feel free to give me my dowry.  Your father withheld it when I married Ted."

"I'll owl Gringotts and the solicitors after dinner," Sirius replied.  "I'll get them to add Nymphadora to the entail while I'm at it.  It's the least I can do, especially if I'm forced to include Snape and Malfoy's brat.  Not that they get more than a token mention, but it's the principle."

"What about Harry?" she asked.

Harry paused in his examination of the old door and looked up.

"He's already my personal heir," Sirius replied, adding heavily, "for the time being, at least."

Andromeda turned to look at Harry, a spark in her dark eyes.  "My, you're quite the catch, aren't you?" she said, plainly amused.  "The girls will be falling over themselves to get at you when you go back to school!"

Right at that moment, Harry could think of few less attractive prospects.  Unbidden, his treacherous imagination supplied images of Orla Quirk, Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown and Daphne Greengrass all simpering at him.  Worse, it kept trying to show him an image of Pansy Parkinson flirting with him over the dinner table at school.

"That's a good reason for not going back," he grumbled, making Bill and Tonks laugh.

"Most lads your age would be panting for the opportunity," Emmeline Vance said, amused.  "Having your pick of the First Families' daughters …."

Harry couldn't think of a polite way to answer this, so he didn't try.  He caught Ron's eye briefly; the redhead seemed to be torn between amusement and consternation. 

"How about we get on with finding the door and staircase while Bill sorts this out?" Remus said, with a touch more impatience than was generally his wont, and they continued on their way.

"There's no tower on this corner of the house," Sirius commented.  "And there's an outer door as well as the stairs, since this is the corner the coach-house stands on."

"You know, Padfoot, there must be another entrance to the wine cellar," Remus replied, frowning.  "Perhaps in one of the storage rooms?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Because one entrance to the bath-house is inside the coach-house, remember?  It leads in this direction, which means the bath-house must be in this part of the cellars."

Sirius stopped and pulled out his sketch map.

"You're right," he admitted after a moment.  "Unless it's under the Morning and Breakfast Rooms. Either way, it makes sense.  There's a plug-ugly fountain shaped like Mercury in the middle of the courtyard which probably shares the water supply.  Do you remember it, Andromeda?"

"I remember you and Regulus using it for pea-shooting practice when you were boys.  What were you aiming for – Mercury's nose?"

"Or something," Sirius said, grinning briefly, and she huffed.

"Personally, I think the bath-house is more likely to be under the Breakfast Room," Andromeda continued.  "It wouldn't be good for the wine to put it in the same part of the cellars."

"Either way, there should be an entrance very nearby," Remus said, "or what would be the point?"

"From things Grandpapa said, I think it was more of a social area of the house for his father's friends," Sirius remarked.  "So I'd expect there to be a hidden entrance somewhere inside the study, perhaps.  Or maybe a portkey."

"Could we fix the bath-house?" Harry asked, interested.  Everyone looked at him, with varying degrees of raised brows and smirks.  "What?" he said defensively.  "It's a bath-house.  It'd be cool."

"Or hot!" Tonks said, with a laugh.

"Or even both."  Remus shook his head.  "If we do, it'll be a long-term project and we'll need to find someone who knows a lot more about plumbing than we do.  I think we have more important things to deal with first."

"Let's assess the damage to the rest of the house first," Sirius temporised, seeing Harry's disappointment.  "Ah!  Here we are."

There was a door at the end of the passage, again painted a dirty green like everything else, although it didn't have the painted-over look of the other door.  It looked heavy and solid, and had a ring-handle and lock that were heavily tarnished.

"This is where things might get interesting," Remus remarked, as Sirius ran his wand over the handle and lock cautiously.

"Did you come in this way originally?" Emmeline Vance asked.

"No - this is as far in this direction as we explored.  We came in by the front entrance and reset the wards, then we opened up this side of the house through the garden door."

"The stained glass window above the main doors was broken," Sirius said over his shoulder to Andromeda.  "Almost looked deliberate ….  Anyway, the weather had been getting in for years, there was all sorts of rubbish in the entrance hall and the woodwork was in a terrible state.  If the damp is widespread, it's no wonder the portraits were all shrieking at us."

"This is going to be like Grimmauld Place all over again, isn't it?" Ron said in a resigned tone, making Tonks grin.  "There aren't any more portraits of your mum, are there, Mr. Black?"

"I hope not," Harry muttered.

"I don't remember," Sirius said, taking a step back from the door and selecting another large key.  He fitted it into the lock and turned it.  "But don't worry, there were plenty of other old hags in the family to make up for her absence - ARGH!"

Everyone jumped, snatching at their wands, only to realise that Sirius had swung the door open and come face to face with the ghost of a young girl in Restoration dress.

"I shall tell them all what you said, Cousin!" she cried and she burst into tears, fleeing back into the main house with a long drawn-out wail.

Everyone took a deep breath to steady themselves, except for Bill who was laughing quietly to himself.

"That was Cousin Susannah," Harry told Ron, when he could speak steadily.  He looked at Sirius, adding pointedly, "Just think, she could have done that when you were _in the bath_."

 

xXx

 

Right," Remus said briskly, when Sirius had collected himself enough to establish that, yes, behind the door was a small space with more doors leading off, including one opposite which led into the main house, and a door to the right which clearly led out into the garden by the coach-house.  "I'll take point, as we previously agreed.  Sirius, Tonks - you two behind me.  Everyone else stay back until we've ascertained what's directly behind the door, but keep your wands at the ready.  Okay?"

"Anyone would think we were raiding a drug den in Knockturn Alley," Ron murmured into Harry's ear.  His breath tickled and Harry shivered pleasurably.  "It's probably just a wormy old house, like Grimmauld Place."

"With screaming portraits and whopping great spiders," Harry suggested, equally quietly.

"If there's spiders I'll be back in the kitchen, making tea."

Harry grinned.  "By the way, I forgot to give you those Animagus books last night.  And I was going to show you my puppets."

"Puppets?"

"Something Flitwick had me doing.  It's great."

"Show me when we've finished here," Ron said, as Sirius carefully unlocked the inner door.

"Locks are fairly good," he remarked, as the key turned easily.  He took a step back and Remus took his place.

"Everyone ready?  Okay, here goes - "

The ring handle turned with an unpleasant squeal and Remus pushed the door open, watching it swing back.  Everyone craned their necks to see what was beyond.

"Spiders," Harry said, the corner of his mouth twitching. 

Huge cobwebs outlined the door, making Ron gulp.  Sunlight was filtering in from somewhere and dust that had been stirred up by the opening of the door was swirling visibly in the air.  A cool, musty smell enveloped them all.

"Is there anything moving in there?" Emmeline Vance asked.

"A bit of scurrying," Remus said.  He took a couple of wary steps into the Lesser Hall, and his face screwed up in the attempt to use his enhanced sense of smell when there was so much dust puffing up around him.  "Rodents and spiders mostly, I think.  Can't sense anything magical, although you shouldn't get complacent about that.  If there are doxies or chizpurfles, they'll be in the furnishings of the rooms, not out here."

"Um … is there a charm to get rid of the spiders?" Ron asked in an embarrassed tone.

" _Aranea exume_ ," Harry said, taking pity on him.  "Works on Acromantulas as well."

"We'd better not find any of those in here," Sirius said rather tartly.  "I don't want to be close enough to an Acromantula to need a hex."  He waved his wand at the dangling cobwebs nearest to him.  _"Aranea exume!"_

There was a kind of rush as the nearest spiders all beat a hasty retreat.

" _Insecto demitto_ usually works quite well," Andromeda added.  "I find it gets rid of ants, flies and woodlice too."

One by one, they warily followed Remus into the hall.  Harry's first impression of the main house was that it was an unattractive place, quite apart from the neglect and decay it had suffered over the years.  It was half-panelled with very dark wood; the upper half of the walls, the mouldings and the ceiling all seemed to be painted in an odd greenish-yellow that had not aged gracefully.  It was all very heavily ornamented, the woodwork carved and bulky and the ceiling mouldings far more elaborate than the hall could really support.  Several enormous chandeliers hung at intervals, great crystal-drop affairs that would have been better suited to a ballroom and looked out of place in this part of the house.  Looking down at his feet, Harry found it hard to see what the floor and rugs were like because of the inches of dust, but he had the impression that the floor itself was patterned parquet and the rugs had some kind of bold design that picked up on the parquet's theme.

Light came from a series of windows in the left hand wall.  They were thickly crusted with years of dirt, but appeared to look out over a jungle - presumably flowerbeds in the courtyard that had run riot over the past decade until nothing could be seen but a mad tangle of plant life.

Everywhere dust and cobwebs lay thickly and paint and varnish peeled or flaked.  There was a staircase at the end of the hall; its broad risers were carpeted but the banisters were heavily carved wood which had probably been polished with beeswax when the house was in use, but which were now dull and blackened with neglect.

"Padfoot, do you see what I see?" Remus said, when everyone had had a chance to take in their surroundings.  He pointed with his wand to a spot three or four feet ahead of him.

"Tracks?" Sirius asked grimly. 

"Several sets and very recent.  Judging by the sheer amount of dust that's been stirred up, I'd say your Cousin Susannah woke something up when she started screaming."

"What sort of tracks?" Tonks asked.

"That's a very good question."  Remus took a couple of careful steps forward and crouched down.  "Something with at least four very small paws, which came down the stairs and headed in that direction - "  He pointed to the third door on the right-hand side.

"That's the study," Sirius said.

"And something without feet which appears to have come out of the skirting board by the stairs and also headed toward the study.  Harry, what do you make of this track mark here?"

Surprised at the question, Harry crouched down next to Remus and looked at it.  The strange, swaying line through the dust was familiar to him.

"That's a snake," he said, grimacing.

"Looks like it," Remus said, straightening up.  "Except that I can't smell snake at all.  I can smell rats, mice, old doxy traces and a few other things, but nothing reptilian.  There's no clear smell from either of these creatures."

"Welcome to my father's little experiments," Sirius said bitterly.  "Be on the alert everyone."

"A automaton?"  Harry couldn't help feeling a little intrigued.  "It must move really smoothly to make a track like that, and it's hard to make something like a snake that isn't jerky."

"Well, no offence intended but we're not dealing with a novice here," Sirius replied.  "My father was a master."

"If I remember his work correctly, it could simply be a dead snake," Andromeda added distastefully.

"If it was, I'd smell something dead," Remus replied, glancing at her.  "Even clean skeletons have a smell.  The scent of this is … different.  Something I'm not familiar with."

"Metal?  Wood?  Fibres?" Sirius asked, but Remus shook his head.

"If anything, it smells a bit like …."  He paused, searching for a description.  "It reminds me of my grandmother's conservatory," he said finally.  "She had pots and pots full of geraniums in there, all sitting on a bed of silver-sand.  The sand had a funny, mineral smell to it and the snake-creature smells like that."

Sirius made a face, perplexed.  "Doesn't ring any bells with me."

"Me either, that's what's so frustrating."

"I'll look in my books later," Harry offered.  "If we don't run into it first, of course."

"Did Flitwick show you how to un-animate things?" Ron asked Harry, gripping his wand and eyeing the tracks warily.

"Not really," Harry said.  "I can inanimate stuff I've done myself, but other people's animations are more advanced.  I could try, though."

"We've got confidence in you, Harry," Tonks told him bracingly.

"Thanks, but I've only made simple puppets so far and my dragon's tail keeps drooping."

"Healers have a name for conditions like that," she quipped.

"Thank you!" her mother said dryly, and Sirius snorted. 

"Well, this is all very nice, but we're procrastinating.  What's it going to be – shall we try the Morning Room or Breakfast Room first?  Or shall we go for the burn and hit the study?"

"I think we should be more disciplined than that," Lupin put in firmly.  "Let's look at what can be done to the hall here first, especially if cleaning out the other rooms in this wing means using this area as a main thoroughfare."

Everyone looked around.

"The rugs," Andromeda said after a moment.  "If they can't be cleaned, or if they're in bad shape, we need to take them up and dispose of them.  Have you given any thought to where we can put any rubbish until we can get rid of it, Sirius?"

"I did think the central courtyard would be the best spot," he admitted, "but not if we're going to have to hire a team just to cut the plants down in there."

"Perhaps it's time to start delegating then," Emmeline suggested.  "One team to cut the garden back to size and one team to work on the interior of the building.  The courtyard team could be responsible for making sure the rubbish is safely stacked while they're at it."

"How about a rota?" Tonks added.  "Circulate everyone, so that no one gets stuck with rubbish duty all the time."

Then she grinned at the looks of fervent gratitude Ron and Harry were sending her way; it took no genius, after all, to recognise that the garden duty would probably be the least risky and also the least exciting job which would consequently be passed to the most junior members of the team.

"Excellent ideas, both," Sirius agreed.  "Let's not forget that one of the reasons we're doing this is so that Harry gets experience in dealing with the everyday lifestyle of Dark wizards."

"Based on what I remember of the inner courtyard, just tackling some of the plants will be an exciting experience," Andromeda said dryly.  "And if we're going to concentrate on the hall this afternoon, I don't think the lads here will be missing anything important.  If we find something educational, we can always call them inside to see it."

"Agreed."  Sirius grinned at Harry and Ron.  "Unless the pair of you have a desperate yen to wrestle with this carpet …?"

"At least we'll be out in the sun," Ron remarked philosophically, when they returned with a scythe, a couple of pairs of shears and two pairs of gloves from Remus's tool shed.

"True.  Although it's a good thing I found the Sun Potion or you'd be a human lobster by dinnertime," Harry told him, grinning a little.  Ron's nose was still peeling from his trip to Egypt.

Bill had finally got the door to the courtyard open ("Can't imagine why they sealed it in the first place," he remarked) and left them to stare out of it at the wall of foliage.  The heat of the summer, unrelieved by more than a couple of very brief showers in the past five or six weeks, did not seem to have affected anything growing there.  It was all green and healthy, covered in flowers and humming with insects.

"Where do we start?" Ron said blankly.

 

xXx

 

In the end, Harry collected a couple of old butter knives from the kitchen and transfigured them into machetes.  It felt absurdly like being in an adventure movie to him (although he didn't bother mentioning that to Ron, who would certainly not understand the reference), for they had to hack their way through the vegetation like jungle explorers, cutting a path to the centre of the courtyard where the foliage hadn't quite taken over yet and the dried up fountain still stood.  It took a good half an hour.

Then they stood on the remains of the laid stone path, panting a little and staring up at the fountain.

"Sirius was right," Ron said at length.  "That's pretty ugly."

Mercury stood there, green with age, one foot balancing tiptoed on the top of the fountain and the other outstretched behind him.  The figure was almost skeletally lean, the ribs clearly depicted and highlighted with verdigris.  Apart from his winged sandals, he was naked.  Harry noted uneasily how the hair had been sculpted to look wind-slicked and the face had a hardness about it that went far beyond the metal it was formed from.  There was a grimness, almost a panic, in the statue's features and the hands were outstretched as though the Messenger of the Gods was fleeing something terrifying.

"Ugly is one word for it," he said.

The rest of the fountain was an imposing stone edifice carved into twisted, distorted faces like gargoyles that seemed to cry out in pain and rage around the water-spouts that formed their mouths.  Below them was a broad bowl to catch the water, with a rim wide enough to sit on, although Harry couldn't imagine anyone wanting to sit on the edge of this fountain for pleasure.  The fountain had long since dried up, and the basin was full of dead leaves and other rubbish blown there over the many seasons that the house had been unoccupied.  The ledge was covered in dry moss.

Some of the anxiety the feature roused in him must have been evident, for Ron touched his arm and said in reassuring tone, "Come on, mate, let's get on – yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry said quietly, and they turned their backs on the fountain and surveyed the garden again.  "Um … perhaps we'd better start on the bit nearest the door and work our way out?"

"Makes sense.  What are we doing, just hacking the plants down?"

"Yeah, let's cut them back for now.  And anything too big to cut back we'll just have to prune, until Sirius and Remus decide what they're going to do with this place."

They set to it and as Herbology lessons went this was probably one of the most strenuous either of them had ever experienced.  Much of the vegetation was magical in nature and resisted all but the most violent measures to remove it; it didn't take long for Ron and Harry to realise that while machetes were good, Slicing Hexes were even better.  Even so, they spent a lot of time chasing plants that could walk (or run), evading the tentacles, claws and teeth of those that could grab and bite, and hacking brutally at those which had bark like a lobster's carapace.  At the end of two hours they had a sizeable pile of roots, fronds and branches at the foot of the fountain which they periodically had to stun or even blast with curses to stop it running away.  Finally, Harry found a long length of vine that didn't seem disposed to fight him once it had been cut from its parent plant, and he used that and a Binding Charm to tie everything up.

Then they stood in the middle of the cleared area, mopping themselves with their t-shirt tails and trying to get their breath back.

"Bloody hell!" Ron gasped.  "Well … if we keep this up, we'll be pretty fit by the time we go back to school."

"Let's get some drinks," Harry suggested.  "Sounds like they're having fun in there too."

The other 'team' had been making plenty of noise, most of it swearing and grumbling as they fought with the carpets, pictures and general dirt.  Sirius made a point of sticking his head out of the door to give progress reports every so often and while there had apparently been no sign of the mysterious creatures that had scuttled through the hall when they arrived, the carpets had resisted removal ("Man-eating carpets!" Tonks remarked at one point, emerging with grazed arms and torn jeans.  "How neat is that?") and there were several portraits that were clinging tenaciously to the walls while the original occupants shrieked abuse from other picture frames halfway up the stairs.

When Harry and Ron appeared carrying a large tray of tea, biscuits and freshly made lemonade, they were greeted with cries of relief and gratitude.

"You're a sight for dry throats," Remus said, wearily conjuring a small table for the boys to put the tray on.  "How's the garden?"

"It won't win any Charming Garden awards from _Witch Weekly_ , I reckon," Ron said wryly.

"Doesn't matter.  I took a quick look and personally I think we should just rip everything up and plant the borders fresh."

"Yeah.  I don't think you really need that many Venomous Tentaculars anyway."

"What do you think of the fountain?" Sirius asked his godson.

Harry grimaced.  "Can we rip that out too?"

"I like that idea.  We need to make sure the water supply is stopped up first, though, or you could end up with a geyser out there instead."

"Tea or lemonade, Sirius?" Andromeda asked; she was pouring.

"This is smashing lemonade!" Tonks remarked.  "Where'd you get this?"

"We found some lemons in the pantry and Ron made it," Harry said, and Ron coloured a little.

"One of Mum's recipes," he mumbled, making Bill grin.

"Nothing wrong with having useful kitchen skills, Ron," Remus said as he summoned chairs for everyone.  "We'd starve if Harry wasn't handy with a frying pan and I couldn't make casserole."

Emmeline and Tonks laughed.

"Cheek!" Sirius said, giving him a jab with his elbow. 

"Everything you know about cooking, oh Heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Black, you learned from _me_."

"And who taught you to cook up trouble?"

"James," Remus said promptly, blowing the steam off his tea.  "As he'd quite happily tell you himself.  There must have been pirates somewhere in the Potter bloodline."  He shot Harry a tiny grin.

Sirius grinned too.  "He'd have liked that idea."

"Not that he needed any extra encouragement," Andromeda remarked sedately, "or any of you for that matter."

There was a pause as everyone relaxed with their drinks.  After a moment or two, Harry put his glass down and dug something out of his pocket.

"What have you got there?" Ron asked him.

"My CD player," Harry replied, tapping the tiny object on his palm with his wand to un-shrink it.  "I've been trying to get it to work.  I've put the Universal Energy Charm on it, but even when I connect it to a ley-line, it doesn't work and I don't know why.  I thought we could play a couple of discs while we're working, but …."

"Let me have a look," Remus said, and Harry handed it over.  His godfather examined it carefully, and shook his head.  "You've set the charm correctly.  I wonder why it isn't playing?  How strong is the ley-line you connected it to?  If it's too strong it could melt the parts inside."

"It's a pretty weak one.  I didn't think it would need much – CD players only take double-A batteries."

Tonks was listening with interest.  "What part of the player did you cast the charm on, Harry?" she asked.

"Battery compartment, of course."

"That's probably what's wrong," she told him with a nod.  "I tried that with an old torch of Dad's once.  You need to cast the charm directly on the mechanism – if you cast it on the place where the Muggle power connections go, it doesn't like it."  She shrugged slightly.  "I don't know why."

Remus handed the player back to Harry with raised brows and Harry, a little twitchy under so many pairs of eyes, removed the charm and re-cast it.

" _Fortis universalis!_ "

There was a tiny flash.  Now for the finicky bit ….  Harry wrestled with the charm for several minutes as he drew it back into alignment with a small ley-line that ran through the kitchen garden, and finally there was a kind of inner _snap_ as the two connected.  There was a pause as though the machine was thinking about it, then the tiny liquid crystal display lit up.

 _Load CD_.

Ron crowed his approval and Harry grinned in satisfaction.  Only one problem – he'd left the discs back in his bedroom.

" _Accio CDs!_ "

It took a moment or two, but with a clatter half a dozen CDs came flying through the door, swooped around Bill and Emmeline's heads, and dropped into Harry's lap.

"There'd better not be any Celestina Warbeck in that lot," Bill warned him with a grin.  "I get enough of that from Mum's wireless at breakfast every morning!"

"They're all Muggle," Sirius said.

"Somehow I don't find that reassuring," Remus remarked.  "Especially if you just grabbed a handful from a bargain basket without looking at them properly first."

"Oh ye of little faith."

Harry looked through them, selected one and put it in the player.

"Funny records," Ron remarked.

"Muggles have moved on from records," Harry explained.  "You can even play music on computers now, without discs or anything."

"What's a computer?"

Harry looked up to find that they were all looking at him curiously, Tonks included.  Heck.  How to explain a computer to people who had never even seen a calculator?

"Um … it's complicated," he said.  "You know what a television is, right?  Well, a computer looks a bit like that only it's not the same at all.  It's – er – "  He stared at them all helplessly.  "It's sort of an … an adding machine I suppose.  But it does loads of other stuff."

"Why would you need one of those _telly-fission_ things to add up?" Emmeline asked, mystified.  "What's wrong with an abacus?  Or an Arithma-Quill?"

Harry wilted.  "Just forget I mentioned it, yeah?"

 

xXx

 

Harry and Ron spent another couple of hours in the garden, fighting the plants and being shrieked at by the jarveys who had been living quite happily in the overgrown vegetation until then.  They received bundles of discarded furnishings to dump as the hall was slowly cleaned out, and when they'd finally cut down enough plants in that direction Andromeda and Emmeline forced the hall windows open.  Shortly after that clouds of dust began to fly out as the team flapped filthy dusters and brushes out of them.

The task was made more enjoyable by Harry's CD player; he transfigured the small headphones into a pair of decent-sized speakers and the courtyard rang with the sound of Queen, whom Ron compared favourably to a wizard rock band called The Jinxsters.

"Sirius likes The Jinxsters," Harry commented, as he sawed at the branches of a small tree that squealed with every stroke.  "He's got a stack of their records."

"Charlie's a big fan, but they haven't done anything new in ages.  They're better than the Weird Sisters though."

That was a sentiment Harry could agree with.  The Weird Sisters' sound had been turning steadily more pop-like on their last couple of albums, with lyrics that were entirely too soppy and girly in his opinion. 

"They've been going downhill ever since Kirley McCormack got married," Ron said disparagingly.

"Poor bloke's arse-whipped by his wife," Bill said.  He and Emmeline appearing behind them unexpectedly, carrying a large picture frame between them.  "The writing was on the wall when they released that cheesy single two years ago – _Sweet Golden Ring_."

"I liked that one!" Emmeline protested.  They heaved the frame onto the rubbish pile.  "Got anything else on those disc-things, Harry?"

"Got some Beatles and Dire Straits," he said doubtfully.

"Either one sounds like it would fit in around here," she replied, looking around the garden. 

Tonks leaned out of one of the windows then.

"Sirius says we're going to call it a day now," she called.  "Does anyone fancy a barbecue?"

"Translation," Harry said to Ron.  "Does anyone fancy burned sausages and very rare steaks for dinner?"

Ron grinned.

xXx

 

Pleasantly full after feasting on barbecued steaks, a mixed salad and a large helping of fresh strawberries and raspberries with cream, Harry went up to his bedroom to collect his books on the Animagus transformation for Ron.  He was taking them off the bookshelf, not thinking of anything in particular, when he noticed that his Pensieve was sitting on the bedside table.  He certainly hadn't been the one to leave it there.

Leaving the books on the end of his bed, Harry approached the table slowly and sat down on the bed next it.  There was another silvery thought swirling gently inside the marble bowl.

Part of him felt aggravated.  After all, this wasn't remotely subtle.  Sirius and Remus clearly wanted to get a message across to Harry and he was contrary enough to resent both the effort and the method, even though he could admit in his more honest moments that there weren't many ways for them to transmit this particular message that _wouldn't_ annoy him.  All the same, his curiosity was piqued.  The memory Sirius had left for him hadn't come with an explanation, after all, and he still wasn't sure why his godfather had wanted him to see it. 

He wondered which one of them had left this now and what the significance would be.  There was only one way to find out.

Holding his breath, Harry leaned forward very cautiously until his nose touched the surface of the thought ….

He was standing in a bright, sunny room that to his surprise he recognised.  The many light, airy windows, the profusion of plants, the sunken pool in the floor filled with water plants and brightly coloured fish, the trickling noise of a small fountain, and the comfortable wickerwork chairs ….  This was the room at The Rose House that Dilly had told him was known as "the ladies' solar", although when she showed it to Harry the fountain had long since been switched off and the pool emptied.

Confused, Harry looked around him and his eyes came to rest on a figure lying on an elegant chaise longe.  He felt a sudden jolt of recognition; it was his mother and she was asleep.  Then a tiny sound caught his attention and he turned to see his father sitting in one of the chairs, holding something wrapped in crocheted blanket.

Harry didn't have time to assimilate this, for Remus Lupin – no older than his father – walked into the room quietly and James Potter looked up, smiling a welcome.  Curious, Harry followed Remus across the room.

"Hullo!" Remus said softly.  "Lily taking a nap?"

"Yeah – she didn't sleep much last night."  James glanced down at the bundle in his arms and grinned.  "Our little Quidditch announcer was making his presence felt."

Harry moved closer to look, wondering what his father was talking about, then felt like an idiot when he saw the tiny body that was partially concealed by the blanket.  It was _him_ of course.  As a baby.  It was unspeakably weird to look down at himself and watch as Remus bent over and gently touched a tiny hand with a fingertip.  After a moment, the baby consented to clasp the finger although he showed little other interest in the visitor.

"Hello Harry," Remus said softly.  The baby yawned, making both men chuckle, and released Remus's finger.

After a moment, Remus pulled one of the other chairs closer and sat down.

"You all right, Prongs?" he asked.

James raised a brow at him.  "Of course.  Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh well … under the circumstances …."  Remus's voice trailed off.

James looked down at the baby for a moment, gently smoothing already tufted dark hair and straightening the blanket unnecessarily.  Then he looked up.

"Have you seen Frank Longbottom?" he asked.

Remus shook his head.  "He's taken Alice and Neville, and gone into hiding.  I haven't been told where."  He gave his friend a grave look.  "Dumbledore – "

"I know, I know.  He wants us to do the same thing."  James's expression had turned grim.  "There's just one problem with that."

"You still haven't told your father?"

"I can't, Remus.  You haven't seen him with Harry - it would kill him to know something like this was hanging over us.  He's – he's not in good health at the moment."

"James," Remus said gravely, "if he knew, he would be the first person – "

"No.  I won't put him under that kind of stress.  You know he hasn't been the same since my mother died."  James gave his friend a tight smile.  "Besides, this house is warded tight to the last inch.  The only way it could be safer was if we put that Fidelius Charm Dumbledore was talking about on it."

"Dumbledore has already said that this house is too big to hide that way," Remus reminded him tensely.  "You'd still have to tell your father what's going on.  And you have a small army of house-elves here who'll never understand that they can't just come and go as they're used to.  You'd have to order the lot of them to stay in the house, and you know as well as I do that there's a good chance Drooby and your nurse would ignore you anyway if they thought it was for your own good.  You're not a good enough despot to make it work, James!"

"Glad to hear it," James said wryly.

"James, this isn't a joke – "

"I know it's not, but if I can't laugh I'll go screaming around the house and right now that's not an option."  James changed the subject before Remus could continue the argument.  "Where's Padfoot?"

"Out on an assignment somewhere," Remus said after a moment.  The tension had not left his voice, only now it was different somehow.  Harry noticed there was an odd look in his light brown eyes and an edge of bitterness in his tone.  "And before you ask, I don't know where or why.  He doesn't tell me those things anymore."

"He probably can't, Moony," James said in a placating tone.  He studied his friend's face, looking concerned.  "All the same, I never see the pair of you together these days, and considering how difficult it used to be to get you apart – in fact, the last time we were all four of us in the same room was the day Harry was born."

"Yes, I know …."  Remus's voice trailed off again, and now there were stress puckers at the corners of his mouth.

"Do you reckon you'll manage to make it to the Christening this weekend?" James asked rather pointedly.  "I'm counting on my best mates being his godparents, you know.  You promised you would."

"I can only speak for myself, Prongs, you know that, but I'll be there, failing unforeseen accidents.  As for Peter - " Remus shrugged.  "He has Order work too, but I'm sure he'll be there.  You know he dotes on the three of you."

"And Sirius?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Remus sighed. 

The baby made a noise then, and James's attention was instantly diverted.  Harry moved forward and crouched down next to his father's chair, irresistibly compelled to see what was going on.  James's expression was … the only word that Harry could think of was 'tender'. 

"All right there, Harry?" his father was saying gently.  "Are your old man and Uncle Moony keeping you awake?"  For the baby was yawning again.  "You're tired, aren't you?  Are you going to take a nap for Daddy?  I've been telling you stories for half an hour."

"Hopefully nothing from _Saucy Sylvester_ ," Remus said, with a smile.

"Mr. Moony, I'm deeply shocked!"

"As was I, Mr. Prongs, when you first introduced me to _Saucy Sylvester_."

"We were just advancing your education," James said, grinning.

"Pity you didn't realise I'd already discovered _Boys On Brooms!_ by myself."

"Now that _was_ an eye-opener," James agreed, his face screwed up in remembered dismay even as his grin widened.

Remus gave him a sly look.  "Sorry, James, did I destroy your innocence by showing you that?"

"No, but finding out what you and Padfoot were doing in the showers scarred me for life!"

"Are you talking about sex again?" a sleepy voice asked, and Remus and Harry looked around quickly.  Lily Potter was sitting up on the edge of the chaise longe, looking muzzy but very pretty.

"We're blokes," James told her affectionately.  "If we're not talking about sex, we're doing it or thinking about it."

"That explains a lot."  She smiled at Remus.  "Hello!  Sorry I was asleep when you arrived."

"Don't be daft!" he told her, smiling back.  "You must be exhausted."

"A little."  Lily looked at James.  "Is Harry asleep yet?"

"Not likely.  I keep telling him stories and he keeps yawning, but he doesn't seem to want to nod off."




"What kind of stories?" she asked, getting up.

"Oh, the standard stuff - princesses, dragons, knights in shining armour - "

"Valiant Quidditch captains saving the day?"

Remus muffled a laugh, but James looked very struck.

"Do you think I should?" he asked her.

"No, and I don't think you should tell him the one about the three mermaids and the giant squid either."  Lily reached her husband's side.  "Here, I'll take him."

But it seemed James wasn't ready to hand his son over.  "But we're both fine here."

She gave him a look, and suddenly smiled.  "Heaven forbid I should interfere in a male bonding moment …."

There was a sudden sickening lurch and Harry found himself back in his bedroom, breathless and confused.  It took him a moment to recognise that he was back in the present day.

Then he realised that he wasn't alone.  Ron was sitting next to him on the bed, watching him with a combination of curiosity and concern.

"Are you all right, mate?"

With no space to gather his thoughts or make sense of what he had seen, Harry could only sit there and stare at Ron, his brain whirling. 

"Harry?"

What had been the point of showing him that particular memory?  It made no sense to Harry, any more than the one Sirius had left there the night before.

Concerned by his reaction, Ron leaned across Harry and gave the stuff in the Pensieve a prod with his wand.  It swirled faster - and an image of James Potter, still sitting in one of the wicker-work chairs, holding a blanket-wrapped baby Harry, appeared above the rim of the bowl, turning slowly.

Harry pulled himself together and quickly tapped the Pensieve with his wand, making the image disappear again.  But Ron had already seen it and was looking at him gravely.

"That was your dad, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."  Harry found that he couldn't look at his friend.

"But you don't remember him, do you?"

"No - no, I don't."

Ron hesitated for a second before asking, "So whose memory is that?"

"Um … Remus's, I think."

Harry waited for the next inevitable question, but it didn't come.  Instead, after a moment of looking at him searchingly, Ron changed the subject.

"Have you got those books, mate?  Because we're going in a minute."

"I wish you could stay," Harry said, and he was ashamed of how small his voice sounded.

"So do I, but I think we're pushing things a bit with Mum at the moment."  Ron hesitated, then reached out and squeezed his arm gently.  "Maybe after a while she'll get over it, yeah?  And I'll be here tomorrow, even if Bill can't come."

"Sirius is taking me to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning, to take my Apparition test."

"Yeah, he said so before I came to find you."  Ron waited a beat, watching Harry's face.  "Maybe when you can Apparate you could come and visit us for a change."

Harry gave him a weak smile.  "I don't think your mum would go for that much either."

"She doesn't hate you, you know."

"No?"

"No.  I reckon she just worries a lot – even about you.  She reckons Sirius and Remus don't feed you enough, and that you wouldn't have ended up in Slytherin if your Muggle relatives weren't horrible to you."

Harry thought about that.  He remembered the hundreds of Hogwarts letters and his uncle trying desperately to prevent him getting hold of any of them.  He remembered the hut on the rock in the middle of the sea, and Hagrid arriving in the middle of the night with a chocolate birthday cake and – finally – a copy of the letter that he was allowed to read.  He remembered his aunt's poisonous rage as – finally – she told him the truth about his mother and father.  He remembered the trip to Diagon Alley with Hagrid, visiting Gringotts, buying his wand and books and robes, then returning to the house in Privet Drive where he'd  suffered another month of the Dursleys' fury and fear before he escaped to Hogwarts for the first time.  He remembered meeting Ron on the train for the first time, and the quarrel and misunderstanding that had arisen over him shaking Draco Malfoy's hand.

And he wondered how things would have been different if his mother and father had lived, if the little scene he'd just witnessed in the Pensieve hadn't ultimately led to the green flash of the Avada Kedavra Curse.  It was a scenario he couldn't imagine, one that was literally beyond his comprehension.

He didn't realise he was staring into nothing until he felt Ron's hand on his cheek, turning his head gently to face him.

"I'm sorry, mate, I've got to go," the redhead said, feeling helpless in the face of Harry's obvious distress.  He wanted to stay and talk to Harry about this – make the other boy tell him _why_ his father was such a touchy subject and help him sort out whatever was going on in his head that made him look so lost.  But it wasn't possible.  Not tonight at any rate. 

"Have an early night, yeah?" he said, feeling angry at the inadequacy of the words.  He dropped a kiss on Harry's mouth.  "I'll see you tomorrow." 

Unable to do anything else, Ron picked up the books from the end of the bed and backed reluctantly out of the room, leaving Harry still staring at the Pensieve blankly.

 

xXx

 

The others – Sirius, Remus and Bill – were in the kitchen when Ron went downstairs.  Tonks and Emmeline had left before he went to find Harry, and since she wasn't in evidence he assumed that Andromeda must have done the same while he was upstairs.  Which was probably just as well, as he was about to do something that made his stomach churn in spite of his determination.

"Did you find him?" Sirius asked. 

Right at that moment Ron couldn't help thinking it was a pretty stupid question.  Of course he'd found him, where else would Harry be?  He was conscious that all three of them were looking at him curiously, and that Remus's rather focussed, unblinking gaze was very unnerving, but if he didn't say what was on his mind now he never would and Ron felt very strongly that someone _ought_ to say it for Harry's sake.

"Er … Professor Lupin," he began.

"Are we going to keep having this argument?" Remus interrupted him amiably enough, although his smile was not reassuring.  "If I was ninety I might let it slide, but I'm not even forty-five yet.  You really can use my first name, Ron."

Ron didn't want to use his first name right at that moment.  Something about his former professor's manner told him that Remus was entirely too aware of just how agitated he was at that moment.  Harry had told him once that Remus became more wolf-like the nearer the full moon came, but this was just a little bit frightening; the normally mild-mannered Remus Lupin looked like he could actually be dangerous.

Only the image of Harry sitting on his bed, looking so stunned, made Ron forge ahead although he could feel his ears and the back of his neck heating up.

"You know, if you want Harry to know stuff about his mum and dad, then maybe you should just tell him, yeah?" he said, forcing the words out as fast as he could, before his courage could desert him.  It was an even bigger effort to make himself meet Remus's eyes, but somehow he managed it and hoped that it wouldn't be taken as a threat.  "Because I reckon that leaving stuff in that Pensieve for him to find isn't a good idea."

Bill stiffened.  "Ron …." he said warningly, and Ron shot him an impatient look.

"Look, I'm just saying, right?  I – I don't think it's right to shove other people's memories into his head when he's not expecting it."

He was grateful that he had Harry's two books to hold, for his hands were shaking slightly, but he managed not to jump or flinch when Remus suddenly shifted a little where he was leaning against the table, and he was proud of that small bit of control.

"Talking to Harry about his parents is a good idea in principle, Ron," Remus said, in the same amiable tone.  "There's just one problem – he doesn't _want_ to talk about them and goes to great lengths to avoid it."

"Maybe you should just leave it alone then," Ron said, gripping the books tightly.

Sirius breathed a bitter laugh.  "If only it were that simple!"

Remus tilted his head to one side, studying the boy.  "Do you think it would be a good thing if we  allowed him to continue believing his father was an arrogant bully?"

Ron chewed his lip for a moment.  That was an interesting, if not entirely illuminating, piece of information. 

"Depends on whether it's true or not," he said.

"It's not," Bill said sharply.  "I knew Harry's dad, Ron!  They don't make bullies the Head Boy at Hogwarts – "

"Oh yeah?  How come they make 'em prefects then?" Ron retorted.

Remus was still studying him.  "It's like a lot of things, Ron.  There's a tiny bit of truth mixed up in a lot of falsehood.  James definitely had his less-noble moments, as I think even Sirius would agree, but they were mostly when he was younger and he grew out of it.  As many people do.  The trouble is that Harry has been privy to some information about his father which, while it certainly isn't something to be proud of, looks considerably worse out of context than it really was.  And the person who gave Harry that information hasn't bothered to provide an explanation for it.  Are you following me?"

"Does Harry know that?" Ron demanded.

"We've tried to tell him, but he's not listening," Sirius put in.  "That's what Remus is trying to tell you."

"We would love nothing more than to sit Harry down and set him straight," Remus continued, "but he's not interested.  And while I could wrestle him to the ground and sit on him while I told him the full story, there isn't a damn thing I could do to make him _listen_ to me.  That's why we decided to try the Pensieve instead."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"I didn't give him that Pensieve for you to beat him over the head with stuff he doesn't want to know," Ron said finally.

"If it seems to you that we're doing that, then I can only apologise," Remus said.  "But before you start condemning us out of hand, please try to see it from our side.  Harry is his own worst enemy sometimes, Ron, and I can't believe that you haven't noticed that."

"Harry's all right," Ron said rather stiffly.

"Nobody's arguing about that," Remus said a little sharply.  "He just needs a helping hand now and again, much as he likes to think otherwise."

"Maybe, but I don't think this is a good way."

Remus made no attempt to hide his irritation at this.  "I'm open to alternative suggestions, since you think you're such an expert!"

"Easy," Sirius said softly, seeing Ron flinch, and Remus cast him an impatient look.

Ron looked down at the books in his hands for a moment.  He didn't want to get into a quarrel with Sirius and Remus, because they'd been good to him, especially since he and Harry had become so close.  Also, for all that the business with the Pensieve upset him, he knew that they had Harry's best interests at heart and were trying their best to deal with him under very trying circumstances.  It wasn't as though Ron didn't know how difficult Harry could be, after all.

"Maybe I could talk to him," he offered.

Remus wasn't prepared to be conciliatory anymore, though.  "That rather defeats the object," he said coolly, "since you know even less about Harry's parents than he does."

"I didn't mean that!" Ron snapped, stung.  "I meant maybe I could talk to him and get him to - to see that he's being a bit pig-headed."

"That'll be the day!" Remus snapped back, and he pushed himself away from the table.  He grabbed a couple of condiment bottles from the table and disappeared into the pantry with them.




"I think we should go now, Ron," Bill said, in a tone that warned him they'd be talking about this when they got back to The Burrow.

Ron's chin lifted but when he looked at Sirius his expression was apologetic.  Sirius sighed and shook his head.

"Don't worry about it," he said wryly.  "You could have picked a better day for it, that's all."

He saw Ron and Bill into the Floo and closed it behind them.  When he turned back, Remus had returned to the main kitchen, still looking annoyed, and Andromeda – who hadn't left after all - was standing in the doorway to the sitting room.  She was leaning against the doorpost, arms folded, her dark brows raised.

" _He's_ a good lad," she observed, sounding impressed.

"He's a young idiot," Remus retorted.

"Why?  Because he had the nerve to question what you were doing?  God forbid anyone should do that!"

"Andromeda," Sirius warned her wearily.  "It's been a long day and as I just pointed out to Ron, this is not the best day to have this kind of conversation anyway."

She shrugged and began to put on her travelling cloak.  "Suit yourselves."  She looked across at Remus.  "But you might want to bear in mind that it took a lot of courage for him to stand there and say that to you.  He must feel very strongly about it.  At the very least, you could do him the courtesy of considering his offer to speak to Harry, instead of dismissing it out of hand just because he's young and said something you didn't want to hear."


	7. Chapter 7

 

The next morning was a bit of a rush, with Sirius hurrying Harry through his breakfast so that they could get to the Ministry as soon as the Apparition Office opened.

"Where's Remus?" Harry asked, as they rinsed dishes and found their robes, for he hadn't seen the other man at all.

"He's out in the garden, prowling," Sirius said shortly.  "It's the full moon tonight, he'll be on edge all day.  That's why I want to get this business done and get back here."  He slapped his pockets, checking for his wand, money pouch and other essentials.  "Right.  Do you remember your instructions on the test?  It takes twenty minutes; ten for the written test and ten for the practical."

"Yeah, I know."

"Harry, listen to me," Sirius said a little sharply.  "We can guard you on the way to the Office, we can guard you while you're in there, and we can guard you on your way back.  But while you're taking the practical test, you're _vulnerable_.  Do you understand?  You'll be Apparating halfway around England in that ten minutes and the only people who'll know where you're going are the test centre staff.  We've made sure they don't know when you're turning up, but if the staff have been got at …."

Oh.  Harry hadn't been feeling particularly nervous until that point, but now he had definite butterflies.

"Now, they make you surrender your own wand when you get there," Sirius continued.  "It ensures that you don't have any unauthorised charms on it, like the portkey spell.  You have to use one of their official wands, which is a bloody stupid rule if you ask me, when they could easily examine your own first, but there you go."

"What if the wand they give me is jinxed?" Harry demanded.

"Well, exactly.  So under the circumstances, you're going to cheat a little."  Sirius took a wand out of his sleeve and offered it to Harry handle first.  "Hide that somewhere you can get at it in an emergency."

Harry took it and felt a odd thrill across his fingertips as he did so.  The wand was made of mahogany and was slightly shorter than his own.

"It's your dad's," Sirius said quietly.  "It's a good wand; it should give you good service if you need it.  Although God knows I hope you won't."

Harry hoped so too.  He tucked it carefully away in an inner pocket, made sure his own was in his sleeve, and straightened his robe.

"Let's go," Sirius said grimly, and they headed for the Floo.

They Flooed not to The Leaky Cauldron, which was the usual point for people heading into Diagon Alley, but to a small bakery much further down the street.  It was only just open when they dropped out of the fireplace, and when Harry glanced around the only customer in the little teashop attached to the bakery was a wizard with an untidy head of straw-coloured hair who was reading the early edition of the _Daily Prophet_.  He glanced up in a disinterested way when Harry and Sirius walked past his table to the door, and immediately turned back to his newspaper.

The street was almost empty, which was hardly surprising for it was barely half past eight and most shops and businesses didn't open until nine.  Harry found himself watching the few people who were up and about rather more sharply than usual, wondering who was on general business, who was one of the Order 'guards' and who was … something else.  A plump witch was unlocking the door of a second-hand robe shop; she didn't even glance at them as she struggled with the stiff lock.  A middle-aged wizard was sitting on a bench in front of the ancient Church of St. Mungo, set back slightly from the pavement.  A vagrant slept on obliviously in a shop doorway, a half-empty bottle still clutched in a grimy hand.  Two young men wandered down the centre of the street, carrying a couple of boxes and talking idly between themselves –

Harry did a double-take.  It was Fred and George Weasley, the red hair was unmistakeable.  But they passed Harry and Sirius without any sign that they knew each other.

Sirius touched Harry's shoulder and guided him towards a tiny side alley. 

"Down here – "

They passed two or three anonymous doors before coming to one that was better maintained than the others, with clean black paint and an imposing brass knocker.  Sirius glanced around briefly, then touched the knocker without actually disturbing it.  It warped out of shape at once, becoming a grill instead.

"Auror Sirius Black and guest," Sirius said quietly.

The grill disappeared completely and a large brass handle sprouted out of the door on the left-hand side.  Sirius grabbed this and pulled the door open, thrusting Harry inside.  There was a brief, disorientating lurch and Harry found himself standing in a bleak-looking stone corridor full of barred doors.

"Where are we?" Harry asked Sirius, when his godfather appeared next to him.

"Auror Detention Centre," Sirius replied.  "Come on …."  He put a hand under Harry's elbow to urge him along.

"Shouldn't I have a pass of some sort?"

"You're with me, that'll be enough for now.  Only the Aurors use this area.  Besides, it's probably better if there's no official record of you at Visitor Control if we can avoid it.  It's bending the rules a bit, but I'd rather have it that way."

Sirius led the way briskly through various passages and up stairs, until they arrived in a more ordinary-looking office area.  There seemed to be nobody around, but Sirius hurried Harry in a single lift on one side anyway. 

There was no formal female voice listing the various floors and departments in this lift.  Instead, it was Muggle-style, with a bank of buttons on the right-hand side of the door and a row of numbers above it that lit up briefly with every floor they passed.  It eventually reached floor six and they stepped out.  There were more people walking around, but no one seemed to take any notice of them as Sirius and Harry made their way to the Department of Magical Transportation.

The staff at the Apparition Test Centre were literally just opening up for business when they hurried in.

"Do you have an appointment?" a rather officious middle-aged wizard demanded, as he wrestled with a door that didn't seem to want to be wedged open.

"No," Sirius replied blandly.  "Is there a problem with that, Sporkins?"

"I shall have to see who else is scheduled for the first slot - "

"Morning Sporkins," a brisk male voice said. 

Harry looked around and found Kingsley Shacklebolt standing behind him.  Sporkins looked annoyed.

"Is there a mass re-qualification exercise in the Auror Department today and I missed the notice, or is there some other reason why you're all bothering me at this hour of the morning?" he demanded testily.

"No," Shacklebolt replied mildly.  "I came for some paperwork you promised to me last week."

Sporkins threw up his hands.  "Fine, fine!  Black, just take the boy through.  Miss Poppins will see to him.  This way, Shacklebolt …."

Harry could sense Sirius's amusement, although whether it was because of the Test Centre Manager's speedy capitulation or the name of the examiner he wasn't sure.  He had no idea if Sirius was familiar enough with Muggle culture to see the humour in _Miss Poppins_.

In the event, she wasn't an Edwardian nanny-type with an umbrella and carpet-bag, but a remarkably short woman who reminded Harry strongly of Professor Flitwick, although she was much younger.  Unmoved by the news that Harry Potter had arrived unheralded to take his Apparition Test, she filled out the paperwork and, after offering Sirius a seat, led Harry into a small side room where he was given a multiple-choice question paper and a quill and formally asked to surrender his wand for the duration.

Having done a fair amount of revising for this paper over the past week, Harry breezed through it in less than the allotted ten minutes and was glad when Miss Poppins gave him a quick smile and told him that he needn't sit out the remaining time if he was happy with his answers.  Leaving his paper with another employee at the desk outside, she led Harry through a door to a circular room where there was nothing but two raised marble platforms in the centre.  Miss Poppins handed Harry a square of white card and a rigid beechwood wand, and directed him to one platform while she took the other.

"On the card is a list of five destinations, Mr. Potter," she told him in a high, squeaky voice.  "You have ten minutes to go to each destination in the order listed, returning to this spot after each one.  Should you become confused, lost, injured or unwell, keep this room in mind and return here directly.  If you splinch yourself, however, remain _exactly_ where the majority of your body parts are and wait for assistance."  She gave him a prim look.  "Needless to say, if such an event occurs you will fail your test and have to re-take it at a later date, if you are in a condition to do so."

Harry didn't find this addendum very comforting, but he was pretty sure that splinching himself was the least of his worries, considering Sirius's little pep-talk at breakfast.

"Are you ready?" the examiner asked.  He nodded quickly.  "Very well, then - Apparate!"

 _Pop!_   Harry arrived in the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's Cathedral.  Fortunately there were no Muggles around, for the noise of his Apparition echoed around the dome. 

 _Crack!_   Miss Poppins appeared beside him.  She cast a sharp eye over him, nodded once and Disapparated.  Harry fixed the little circular room at the Ministry in his mind and Disapparated with another pop.  He reappeared on his marble podium opposite the examiner and checked his card for the next destination.

 _Pop!_   He was at the gates of Hogwarts.  And back to the Ministry -

 _Pop!_   Now he was standing on the edge of a long pier somewhere on the coast.  There was a brisk breeze and the waves were whipping up a spray -

 _Pop!_   This was starting to be fun, although Harry had a feeling he'd miscalculated slightly this time - it was a good thing Robin Hood's statue had been removed for repairs recently.

 _Pop!_   Dover Castle loomed up in the background.  Suddenly feeling weary, Harry waited for Miss Poppins to appear once more before Apparating back to the Test Centre.

When Harry emerged from the examination room Sporkins was muttering irritably over a set of half-opened and disarranged filing cabinets, and Kingsley Shacklebolt was signing and folding sheets of parchment.  Sirius stood up, casting a quick, enquiring look at him; Harry grinned and held up his test sheet, which had been stamped _PASS_ in bright red ink.

Sirius's face, which had been rather tense, relaxed into a grin.  "Excellent!  Here, let's get your wand back and buy your licence."

Miss Poppins had followed Harry out; now she squeezed around Sporkins at the main desk (which was almost too high for her to see over), found Harry's wand and returned it, and issued Harry's Apparition Licence.  Sirius paid the twenty Galleons on his godson's behalf and they turned to leave, only to run into a slender blonde woman in a form-fitting, blood-red robe and matching veiled hat, and a blond youth of Harry's age -

Narcissa and Draco Malfoy.

Harry experienced a nasty jolt somewhere in the region of his breakfast and Sirius was suddenly very still at his side. 

Later Harry would remember this little confrontation as being oddly like a snake and a mongoose facing off against each other.  He and Draco were almost irrelevant; it was all between Sirius and Narcissa, a horrible, poisonous tension expressed solely by cold expressions and eyes full of loathing.  The last time Harry remembered seeing Sirius react like this to someone had been -

"Good morning, Mrs. Malfoy," Shacklebolt's voice intruded politely, and to his relief Harry felt the atmosphere slacken just a little as her attention was briefly drawn away.  She didn't bother to acknowledge the senior Auror, though, and from the tiny curl of Draco's lip Harry guessed that Shacklebolt was ranked among the Great Unwashed in Malfoy opinion.  That made him feel a little more in charity with the Auror than he normally did.

"You wanted a word, Black?" Shacklebolt continued, rather pointedly.  "I've an hour before I'm due in another meeting - come to my office."

"Thanks, Kingsley."  Sirius's eyes never left Narcissa's face.  He stepped to one side to let her and Draco pass, but as she did so Harry heard him say very softly, presumably for her ears only: "Perhaps another time - _Cousin_."

Draco's attention was on Harry.  Leaving Hogwarts under a cloud didn't seem to have done anything to improve his attitude, for the sneer was one Harry was well-acquainted with after six and a half years of sharing a dormitory with him.  He fixed his eyes on a point just beyond Draco's left ear and looked politely bored.

"Potter," Draco said, smirking as he pushed past Harry.

Harry's method of dealing with this kind of thing was so well practised as to be second nature to him.  He blinked, focused on Draco's face and frowned a little, as though trying to remember his name and why someone so insignificant might be addressing him.

Draco's sneer turned to something more nearly resembling a snarl.

"Come, Draco," his mother said sharply.  "We have very little time.  Your father expects us to meet him in the Minister's office in half an hour."

"One can only hope she was saying that for effect," Shacklebolt commented in an undertone to Sirius a moment or two later as the three of them were walking to the Auror Department's offices.

"I doubt it," Sirius said curtly.

 

xXx

 

From a reasonably promising start, the day seemed destined to go downhill rapidly.  Harry asked himself at several points why, when this happened to him so often, he should still be surprised by it.

The two of them returned to the Manor to find Remus pacing the kitchen gardens in a rare temper even for him on a full moon.  Dumbledore was in charge of the sitting room and teapot, and with him were Andromeda, Emmeline, Father Marius, Ron and Hermione Granger.

Harry's temper promptly took a nosedive too.  It took a desperate effort to keep his expression neutral as he said good morning to them all; he'd been looking forward to Ron's arrival that morning, but the inclusion of Hermione took the edge off things considerably.

"Before you all start work once more," Dumbledore said, "I have some business to conduct with Sirius, which Andromeda and Emmeline are welcome to join us for, and I believe Father Marius wishes to take this opportunity to conduct another Confirmation class with Harry.  Perhaps, if you have no objection, Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger could join you, Father?"

"Certainly."  The priest gave Hermione a quick smile as he stood up.  "You'll probably find it interesting, in the context of our conversation."

She looked delighted.  "If you don't mind!  I knew wizards have churches, because I've seen the one in Hogsmeade, but I had no idea it was different from the Church of England and - "

" _I_ mind," Harry interrupted sharply, before he could stop himself.  "It's bad enough that I have to go through this whole bloody rigmarole, without a bright little audience pointing out my mistakes every two minutes!"

"Hey!" Ron said indignantly, and Harry felt a flush climbing his neck and face to rival the sudden pink tinge of Hermione's. 

Typically, this just made him angrier.  Muttering something - even he wasn't sure what - he turned and stalked up the stairs to his room.

Hedwig was hooting at him from her perch when he got there - she had a message tied to her leg - but Harry didn't have time to take it before Ron stormed into the room behind him.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded.  His ears were bright red and his face was turning an angry pink under his freckles.  "What's Hermione done to you to deserve that?"

It was completely unfair and irrational, but Harry couldn't stop himself and didn't care to in any case.  As far as he was concerned, she was a handy and appropriate target for all his recent stress, aggravation and resentment.

"She's a nosy, interfering cow!" he snapped back.  " _First_ she hangs around at school when she's not wanted, _then_ she's blackmailing me into joining her bloody pathetic band of bigoted would-be heroes, and if that isn't enough, _then_ she forces herself and her mates and your sister onto me on the train home!  And now she's here!  She's in my fucking _house,_ inviting herself to my fucking Confirmation class - can't I even come home without her sticking her nose in and offering an opinion?  Why did you even bring her here?"

"I didn't!" Ron said angrily.  "Dumbledore did!"

Far from mollifying Harry, this information made his anger surge even higher, until he thought it would explode out of the top of his head.

"Why the _hell_ \- "

His scar was prickling – he barely became conscious of this before it turned to an acute burning sensation and pain lanced through his head.  Harry staggered, catching himself on the bedpost, and felt his stomach lurch.  For a moment the room seemed to blur and skew, then it was back again, almost painfully bright and clear, and he was staring into Ron's face, wondering just what had happened.  Ron's anger was gone, replaced by alarm.

"Harry?" he said, his voice coming out unusually high with fright.

Harry swiped at his head, feeling unusual heat in the scar, then another knife-like pain lanced through him, making his head ring.  His vision doubled for a moment and he found himself staring at Ron seemingly from two different perspectives, one of them unnaturally bright and focussed on the other boy's face.  That finally alerted him to the danger he was in.

"Shit," he whispered, and with that he heard an echo of familiar, cruel laughter inside his head. 

For once his temper served him.

"Oh no you don't!"  Squeezing his eyes shut and sucking in a deep breath, Harry focussed on the source of the laughter and deliberately gave a kind of sharp, sustained mental _shove_.  Then he locked his mental shields back into place and emptied his mind.  For several moments he did nothing but breathe, refusing to allow anything else to cross the darkness inside his eyelids.

The pain began to recede.

When he finally opened his eyes again, he was sitting on the floor beside his bed and Ron was bent over him, shaking him and pleading in a terrified voice for him to snap out of it.

"I'm okay," he managed, grabbing the other boy's hands to still him.

"I'm going to get Sirius," Ron said, his voice shaking, but Harry held on to him tightly.

"Don't!  Please – "

"Harry, you had some kind of fit and your scar – "

"It was nothing unusual, Ron."  He stared up into Ron's hazel eyes, pleading with him not to make a fuss and alert everyone, with all the consequences that would entail.  "Really.  Sometimes he does that, just to test me – he did it in the middle of my party the other day.  I block him and he goes away, until the next time.  Don't make a fuss – please?"

Ron hesitated, clearly torn between accepting Harry's explanation and fetching help anyway.  Eventually he crouched down beside Harry, but he still looked torn.

"That was really scary, mate," he said.  His eyes were wide and his face colourless.

Harry thought back to Easter; Voldemort's attack on him on that occasion had left him passed out at the bottom of the tower stairs with his scar bleeding.  It had taken him nearly three days to recover.

But Ron didn't need to know that.

"I know it probably looks bad," he said, "but mostly I just push him away and make my mind blank so that he's got nothing he can get his hooks into.  I'm okay, really.  He's gone."

"Is it that Occlumency thing you and Hermione talk about?" Ron asked doubtfully.

"Yeah.  Well, mostly."  Harry wondered what he could say that would convince his friend.  Maybe it would be simpler to distract him?  "Look," he said, "it was my own fault, you know.  I'm sorry – I got mad with you and – and Hermione, and I let my guard down.  Getting pissed off is one of the things that can let him get into my head.  It makes my shields weak."

Ron bit his lip, but he seemed to relax a little at this admission.  "It wasn't my idea to bring her here," he said after a moment.  "Look, mate, I know you don't like her much but – she's okay, you know?  I know she's pushy and annoying as hell sometimes, and thinks she knows everything, but she just wants to help.  I reckon that's why Dumbledore brought her today.  She wants to help out."

There wasn't much Harry could say to that, for he knew it was probably true.  It wasn't Hermione's fault that she'd come along on a day when everyone's tempers were frayed at the edges.

"Yeah, well …" he muttered.  "I suppose I overreacted.  I just … it's full moon tonight, so Remus is going nuts and Sirius is on edge, and then we had to go to Diagon Alley and everyone was convinced I might get attacked while I was taking my test, so it was pretty tense anyway.  And then we came home and Father Marius was here, which means a poxy Confirmation class, and she's here as well and I just … sort of flipped.  Sorry."

"It's okay."  The last of the tension seemed to go out of Ron and he sat down on the floor next to Harry.  "I reckon everyone's a bit touchy at the moment.  I had a row with Bill last night – he was right pissed off with me."

"Why?" Harry demanded, surprised, for Ron and Bill seemed to be best friends to him.

But Ron only waved the question off.  "Nothing.  Nothing important.  He was okay again this morning."  He changed the subject.  "So did you get your licence?"

"Yeah."  Harry felt a small grin suddenly crossing his face.  He could Apparate at last.  That opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

 

xXx

 

When they went back downstairs to join the others, Harry made a point of taking a seat on the couch next to Hermione.  While he was normally quite capable of ignoring the need to apologise when he felt like it, today was not one of those occasions; after the little scene upstairs he thought it advisable to eat crow for once. 

Glancing at her obliquely, he used the conversation between the adults and the noise of tea being poured as cover to mutter, "Look, I'm sorry.  About what I said, I mean.  I was pissed off when I came home and took it out on you, and I shouldn't have."

He had the satisfaction of taking her by surprise for once.

"That's all right," she muttered back after a moment, and Ron, who was sitting on her other side, looked very relieved.

After the tea was handed around, Dumbledore said firmly, "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we should get on with our intended business as planned, before the day is entirely gone.  Father Marius?"

"Of course," the priest said.  He looked at Harry.  "It's too nice a day to stay inside - how about we use the table outside?"

Harry nodded, feeling a trace of his original reluctance again.  "I need to get my stuff, and I want to take Remus a cup of tea …."

"We'll wait for you out there."

Hedwig hooted reproachfully when Harry went back to his room to collect his Bible and other Confirmation notes.  Harry apologetically took the note from her leg and gave her a couple of owl treats before opening it.

 

 _Potter -_

 _I need to speak to you about a matter I believe to be of considerable importance to both of us._

 _My family leave to visit relatives tomorrow, but we shall return to England before September and I propose to visit you at your home on the 22 nd August.  Please let me know at once if this is inconvenient for you, so that we may make other arrangements._

 _I can assure you that I would not take such a presumptuous step if I did not consider it to be of the utmost importance to both of us._

 _I hope to hear from you very soon._

 _Blaise Zabini_

 

Harry stared at this letter in astonishment.  He couldn't ever recall having received more than a perfunctory Christmas card from his Housemate, and wouldn't have expected it - they might be on reasonably cordial terms, but Harry wouldn't call it friendship.

What on earth could Blaise want to speak to him about that necessitated him coming to the Manor?  And why was the letter so formal?  But he didn't have time at the moment to consider it properly, especially as he wasn't sure if Blaise coming to the Manor was a good idea and needed to consult Sirius.  Stuffing the note into his jeans pocket, Harry grabbed his Confirmation papers and went back downstairs.

When Sirius had said that Remus was "prowling" the garden earlier that morning, he hadn't been joking.  When Harry went out to find him, he was pacing around the greenhouses restlessly, looking out of sorts to say the least.  When he caught sight of Harry he seemed to be in two minds whether to acknowledge him or not, but after a moment or two his shoulders sagged a little and he walked over.

"I thought you'd like some tea," Harry explained, offering the mug.

"I could do with something a lot stronger," Remus said, but he accepted it.  The comment was facetious in any case, as alcohol was on his 'forbidden' list directly before a full moon - while it made the initial change easier, it also made him more feral and dangerous for the duration of the transformation.

"Did you see that unholy crew in the sitting room?" he asked Harry, when he'd taken a sip.  The comment was unlike his normal manner, but Harry wasn't inclined to disagree with it.  "The moment I saw Dumbledore, I knew I had to get out of the house again."

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind too, but I don't have an excuse."

"Hm.  Well, better you should suffer than me, under the circumstances."  Remus grimaced.  "Tea tastes off - "  He saw Harry's face as he handed the half-empty mug back.  "Not your fault.  It's the moon.  It's going to be a bad one tonight, I can tell, and it won't just be me on the prowl by the end of the day, you see.  I expect you'll be feeling out of sorts too."

"Already am," Harry admitted, with a shrug.  "Professor Dumbledore brought Granger with him, did you see?"

"Lousy timing.  Oh well, can't be helped."  Remus gave him a sudden, wolfy grin.  "I'd say 'bite your tongue' but I don't want to have to charm it back on again!  Did you pass your test?"

"Yeah, of course!"  Harry grinned back at him.

"Good.  Right - judging by the stuff under your arm, Father Marius wants to torture you for an hour or so.  You'd better go."

"Aren't you coming in?"

Remus shook his head.  "Trust me, no one will want me around the house at the moment.  I might come in for lunch, if you can promise it'll be very lightly cooked steak."  He managed another grin, but he was visibly restless.  "I'll just go and mark some trees."  Then he looked disconcerted.  "Let's pretend I didn't say that, okay?"

So Harry went back to the house and resigned himself to his Confirmation class.  It was every bit as annoying as he'd anticipated.  Struggling to understand a ream of information about the religion he'd been baptised into, and should rightly have absorbed over the course of seventeen years instead of in a space of mere months, was no fun, especially when his tutor was dividing his attention between him and Hermione's questions.  Ron did his best to help but like many people who are casually raised in a particular faith, he actually understood less about the teachings of the Omnis Arcanum Church than he thought he did, which was of little help to someone undergoing a crash course.

Father Marius finally called a halt at midday and everyone had lunch.  Dumbledore had left an hour or so previously after talking to the others, and since then Sirius, Andromeda and Emmeline had made another start on the house.

"I suspect we'll have to throw out all the furnishings in the Breakfast Room," Andromeda said, as she nibbled daintily on a quartered apple.  "Which is a terrible shame, but one of the windows was smashed and there was water damage everywhere.  The floorboards were rotten in places and there was _moss_ on the sideboard, which is a bad sign."

"Not to mention a whole nest of jarveys under the table," Emmeline added rather grimly.  "I suppose we should be grateful the gnomes hadn't got in as well, but it was one of the higher panes of glass and they're not as nimble."

"The chimney's blocked too," Sirius said.  "Good thing I know a spell for checking that or we could have lit a fire and ended up smoking ourselves out.  Although fumigation seems like a viable way to go at this point.  With any luck, it'd shut up some of the portraits for a while."

"No sign of any dodgy creatures or stuff running around yet, then?" Ron asked, and Sirius shook his head.

"Plenty of prints in the dust, but that could have been the jarveys.  But don't worry, there's plenty more house for them to hide in."

"So what are we doing this afternoon?"

"I was hoping you three would carry on clearing the courtyard," Sirius said, a little apologetically.  "We need to move all the rubbish we've been dumping there out to the driveway.  I leave it up to the three of you how you manage that.  It'd also be good if you could clear the rest of the vegetation on the opposite side of the courtyard from where you were working yesterday.  You should find doors and a lot of long shuttered windows on that side – what my grandmother used to call the cloisters, although it's no such thing.  There's a hallway that runs alongside the ballroom and the windows and doors onto the courtyard can be thrown open in the summer to make it into a kind of covered walkway.  It'll save a lot of time if we can get at the ballroom from that direction, rather than going through the library."

"But will you really need to clean the ballroom just yet?" Hermione put in.  "What will you use it for?"

"Order meetings," Sirius replied briskly, "amongst other things."

"Oh, of course."  She subsided, looking thoughtful.

A short while later, Harry helped Sirius wash up the plates and told him about Blaise Zabini's note.

"Is it okay for him to come here?" he asked.  "I mean, I don't know a lot about his family, except that they've mostly been Slytherins and Ravenclaws."

Sirius hesitated.  "Antonio Zabini worked in the Diplomatic Corps under your grandfather," he said.  "I never heard that he or Guiseppe Zabini were Death Eaters.  Sharp men, with long-standing family connections in Italy, yes ….  Look, if it's just the lad then I don't see that it can hurt.  We would have let him and any of your other friends come here if you'd had a birthday party, after all.  Owl him to say he can come, but we'll make arrangements to let him through the wards later.  That'll give us some time to think about whether we need to be more cautious."

After Harry had sent Hedwig back with a reply, he, Ron and Hermione gathered up gardening tools and set about clearing more of the resistant vegetation, with the help of Father Marius who unexpectedly removed his outer robe, rolled up his sleeves and appointed himself to their 'team'.  They went back to the stairwell that linked the servants' wing to the main part of the house and got the outer door open, and began to drag the accumulated rubbish out to the gravel drive by the coach-house.

"This would be easier if we could charm it to move itself," Hermione remarked, after twenty minutes of struggling to move an enormous mouldy carpet.  "There's a spell that makes things follow a tune, but someone has to play a flute to make it work.  I don't suppose any of you …?"

"You must be kidding," Ron said.  "I don't think there's ever been a musical Weasley!"

"I'm afraid I only sing well enough for church purposes," Father Marius said apologetically.

"I can't play either – never had music lessons," Harry added.  "Does it have to be someone playing?  I could put my CD player on that post over there."

"It would have to be something fairly repetitive, I think," she said doubtfully.

"I think there's a couple of dance tracks in the pile of CDs Sirius gave me, and I can set it to repeat one over and over."

"There's nothing to be lost by trying it," Father Marius suggested, so Harry fetched his player.

They had to experiment a little, and there was a grumpy confrontation with Remus before they worked out a noise level that was enough to charm the rubbish without driving his hypersensitive ears mad, but eventually the rubbish began to troop obediently out to the driveway to the sound of _It's A Sin_ , leaving them to get on with fighting the garden.  Four pairs of hands made things go a little faster, but it was still nearly two hours before they cut a path through to the "cloisters" Sirius had mentioned. 

As he had told them, all the wide windows were shuttered over and the one door they found was a heavy wooden one with two horizontal bars holding it firmly shut.  The stonework on this side was heavily decorated, although it was hard to tell under the decade or so of ivy and lichens if it was carved directly or attached mouldings.  More ugly gargoyles, matching the ones on the fountain, peered out from elaborate leaf and vine details, interspersed in places with the more sinister kind of Green Man motifs.  Harry was uninterested in the decorations, though; he wanted to try and get the door open there and then, and Father Marius was trying to dissuade him from this when Andromeda called them all inside for a drink.

The hall had finally been stripped bare and given at least a cursory cleaning, which basically meant that the dust and surface dirt had been swept out.  It would take a lot more to clean up the parquet floor and the woodwork until they looked the way they were meant to, and a complete redecorating exercise would be needed to replace moulding wallpaper and peeling paintwork.

The Breakfast Room was in a similar state.  The moisture-warped wooden furnishings had been trooping out to the driveway all afternoon along with all the other rubbish, leaving behind a dingy room that was little more than bare wooden floorboards and some remarkably ugly lilac-sprigged wallpaper.  Remus had conjured up a small table to sit the tea tray on again and they all stood around, sipping tea and discussing their findings wearily.

Sirius was pleased about the discovery of the door into the cloisters.

"We can look at that tomorrow or the next day," he said.  "Bill or Kingsley should be able to join us then."

Harry was disappointed by this, especially as he felt it was a little uncharacteristic of his godfather to be so cautious, but he cheered up when Sirius suggested that it was time some of the team members swapped around for a while.

"I'm going to open that door there in a minute," he said, waving his mug towards a badly damaged wooden door to one side of the door out into the hall.  "That's the Morning Room.  We should find some over-stuffed chairs, a couple of occasional tables, a writing desk, some bad-tempered portraits of various ancestors in hunting gear, and a fireplace with a mantelpiece full of ugly china ornaments."

"Big, swagged brocade curtains at the windows – probably full of doxies," Andromeda added.  "A footstool that bites if you try to sit on it - "

"An ugly rococo mirror over the mantelpiece," Sirius said.

"And a large Chinese vase in one corner, full of ornamental pampas grasses," she finished.

"The vase goes," Remus said emphatically.  "I've nothing against vases that have a purpose, but anything outsized that does nothing but collect dust has no place in any house _I_ live in."

"It's probably an antique," Sirius replied.  "If you don't want it, Andromeda, we'll flog it."

"Or you could send it to Narcissa for Christmas," Remus suggested.  "A nice, friendly gesture from the head of the Black family."

"She never liked enormous vases either," Andromeda commented.

"Better and better."

Sirius grinned.  "That's a good idea.  We should get rid of the mirror as well, although not to Narcissa."

"If the glass itself is in good condition, perhaps it could be re-framed."

"Only one way to find out."

The teams swapped around – Andromeda, Emmeline, Remus and Hermione went to sort out the garden, while Sirius, Harry, Ron and Father Marius stayed inside and set about tackling the Morning Room.

 

xXx

 

By six o'clock they had to give up.  The Morning Room had yielded nothing more than mouldering furnishings and doxy-infested curtains, which was a decided let-down for Harry and Ron, both of whom had hoped for a few curses to liven up the cleaning process.  The nearest they came to that were the ornaments on the mantelpiece that had to be chased around the room and ended by being smashed with the back of a brush.  The footstool also gave Father Marius a few lively moments, and Harry's respect for him was significantly increased when he heard the things the young priest said under his breath as he fought with it.

The curtains were indeed infested with doxies, as Andromeda had predicted; as they had no Doxycide to hand, the four of them Stunned the curtains repeatedly until there wasn't a flicker of movement.  The Stunned doxies were then stuffed into an old crate Sirius fetched from the coach-house and transported outside with the rest of the rubbish, to await disposal.  The curtains, laden with doxy eggs, were taken outside and briskly burned.

Not even the writing desk yielded anything more than some ancient correspondence, a stack of parchment and envelopes bearing the Black family crest, some dark green sealing wax, and a handful of mouldy quills.  Considering that the carpet had been inches deep in dust that was marked with small paw-prints and snake marks, it was all annoyingly innocuous.

"Cheer up!" Sirius told the two boys, as they gathered up their brushes and dusters.  "The next room's the study and that's bound to be livelier.  Or we could tackle the ballroom."

There was no gathering around the barbecue that evening.  Father Marius excused himself almost once – he lived with Father Ignatius, who kept early hours – and both Andromeda and Emmeline had to return home to their families.  That left Hermione and Ron, and it turned out that Hermione also needed to return home for dinner.  As that meant Flooing to The Burrow before she could Apparate, it effectively meant that Ron had to return home too.

"I'm sorry, mate," he said, looking at Harry a little anxiously.  "Will you be okay tonight?"

He meant the full moon, of course, and in fact Harry wasn't looking forward to it at all, for he never really liked being shut into the house on his own for the duration and this time it was definitely going to be a bad one for Remus.  But there was nothing to be done about it, so he fixed a grin on his face and said "Of course!" and watched as the two of them disappeared into the Floo.

It was a tense evening.  Sirius and Harry made dinner between them, but Remus rejected all offers of food and drink and resumed his bad-tempered pacing in the garden, leaving the other two to pick at their meals uneasily. 

"Why's this one so bad?" Harry asked, while they washed the dishes.

"Sometimes the pull of the moon is stronger than others," Sirius replied, his mind only partly on the question.  "I wish he would eat – he'll be miserable tomorrow.  Sundown in half an hour … let's get you set up."

They assembled Harry's charmed tea tray so that he would have drinks and snacks throughout the night if he wanted them, then got him settled in his room.

"I'm going to double ward the tower, just in case," Sirius told him finally.  "Not because I think it's necessary, but just as a precaution.  Whatever you do, don't try to remove them before six o'clock tomorrow.  Okay?"

When the door into the tower was closed and warded, Harry reluctantly went to bath and get himself ready for bed.  It wasn't as though there was much else to do after all.  He couldn't help remembering the last full moon he'd spent there, though, and how different that had been.  It was going to be a long night.

But when he returned to his bedroom, there was a surprise waiting for him.  In the middle of his bed sat Ron's kneazle, Rosebud.  There was a rolled up piece of parchment tucked into her braided collar.

Harry sat down on the edge of the bed, lifted the purring kneazle into his lap and unrolled the note.

 

 _Sorry I can't be with you, mate,_ Ron wrote, _but I thought you might like some company anyway.  I've asked Rosebud to come and stay with you, and she's pretty smart so I think she will.  Sleep tight, don't forget to do that Occluthingy stuff Hermione goes on about, and I'll see you after breakfast tomorrow._

 

It was surprising how much better something as simple as a note could make him feel.

 

xXx

 

Breakfast was a solitary meal for Harry the next morning.  Rosebud disappeared as soon as Sirius removed the tower wards, and when Harry went down to the kitchen he found both of his godparents looking filthy and exhausted.  Remus was in such bad shape that Sirius – himself shaking with fatigue – had to forcibly pour a restorative potion down his throat.

"A short night," he muttered to Harry, as he did this.  "Short, but bloody awful."

Harry made him drink some of the potion himself, then helped Sirius to carry Remus up to bed.

There would be no work done on the house that morning.  As soon as they'd rolled Remus into the blankets, Sirius collapsed beside him and Harry correctly judged that he wouldn't see Sirius again until lunchtime at the earliest.  As for Remus, he would certainly be in bed for the rest of the day and possibly part of the next day too.

So Harry had a solitary bowl of cereal and wondered what to do with himself for the morning.  His schoolwork had been done while he was at Hogwarts, so in the end he fetched his puppet-making materials and reference books and set to work.  He was pondering the possibility of making a three dimensional bird next – there was an old duster on the bookshelf that was just begging to be raided for its feathers – when the Floo flared into life and Ron landed in the fireplace with Rosebud under his arm.

Harry was delighted.

"I wasn't expecting you this early!" he said, jumping up and reaching out to swing the kettle over the range.

"Well, I did say after breakfast," Ron reminded him, grinning.  "Have a little faith!"  He glanced around.  "Where is everyone?"

"Remus and Sirius are in bed – they had a pretty rough night.  And I don't know if anyone else is coming."

"Should we get started anyway?"

Harry looked at him, surprised.  "What, you mean the study?"

Ron shrugged, but there was a mischievous twitch at the corner of his mouth.  "It's not like we can't use magic.  And really, if we can survive Hogwarts, we can probably survive anything."

He had a point there, Harry had to admit.  And he was definitely tempted by the idea of tackling one of the rooms in the Manor without 'adult' assistance.  What had been the point of all his extra lessons over the past weeks if he couldn't handle a few hexed ornaments?

"You're on!  Want a cup of tea first?"

"That'd be great."  Ron put Rosebud down and sauntered over to the kitchen table.  "Are these the puppets you were telling me about?"

"Yeah.  They're okay, but the 3D ones need a bit more practice."  Harry scooped tea into the pot, then turned back to the table and picked up the tartan dragon.  "I don't think it's just my Animation skills, though.  I'm not much good with a needle either, so the right wing on this is a bit … tight."

He laid it across his arm and willed power into it.  The dragon sat up, gripping his wrist with balsa claws, and stretched its wings out.  One of them moved a shade more stiffly than the other.  Ron's eyes were wide with pleasing admiration though.

"It's still bloody brilliant, mate!"

Harry flushed with pleasure.  "It's okay," he said modestly.

Abruptly Rosebud, who had hopped up onto the table to sniff around, made an unexpected leap for the puppet.  Harry was taken by surprise and sent a shot of unregulated power into the dragon.  It jumped clumsily from his arm just in time to thwart the kneazle and Ron caught it as the overly tight wing-joint nearly sent it plummeting to the stone floor.

"Rosebud, don't!"  He carefully stretched the wing out to examine it.  "Maybe you could loosen this a bit?  And, er – " he let out a snort of laughter, "you could maybe re-think the pattern on the next one, yeah?"

"Why, what's wrong with it?"  Harry set out a couple of mugs and began to pour the tea.

"Harry, mate, the wings don't match."

"Does it matter?"

They looked at each other.

"Well … I suppose it depends on what you're planning to do with them," Ron said, a little amused at Harry's puzzled expression.  He put the dragon down and hastily lifted Rosebud off the table before she could attack it again.  "So have you made any others?"

"That's the first 3D one.  There's a stack of flat cardboard puppets."

He showed them to Ron while they drank their tea, making them jig around and ad-libbing dialogue in a variety of voices just for the pleasure of hearing his friend laugh.  He'd added to the ranks of fantastic beasts, witches and wizards by including not only Voldemort but also a couple of Dementors, a Dumbledore-like elder wizard, a house-elf, a couple of characters that even Ron realised had to be his Muggle aunt and uncle, and a number of other puppets that included a wolf, a dog, a rat and a stag, and – perhaps most uneasily – several anonymous young children.

No two puppets were the same and Harry only drew what he knew.  It was obvious to Ron that it didn't occur to his friend that his character choices were telling, nor that the rather macabre interplay he made up for them said things about him that he would probably have preferred to keep hidden.  It _was_ funny – it was impossible to watch and not chuckle as the basilisk chased Voldemort around the table top accompanied by high-pitched cries of _Ouch!_ , _Don't do that!_ and _How dare you, I'm your master!_ – but Ron couldn't help thinking that there was more to the odd conversation between Dumbledore and the centaur about the meaning of life than was immediately apparent, and to see the Dursley puppets herding the children towards the Dementors with a sanctimoniously intoned _It's for your own good!_ was downright disturbing, although this was redeemed by the phoenix and Quidditch team swooping down to rescue them.

"I haven't learned how to make the animation permanent yet," Harry said, as he sent the puppets scuttling back into their box.  "Sirius and Remus gave me a book about toy-making for my birthday though, and I'd like to make some proper toys instead of puppets."

"Quidditch toys," Ron suggested.

"I've seen toy brooms," Harry said.  "They're a bit limited, aren't they?"

"Yeah, but they're for kids to ride.  You could make a set of miniature players on brooms that kids could have matches with."

Harry liked that idea; in fact, he liked it so much that he almost forgot they had other plans for the morning and was tempted to get his craft tools out to start at once.

"Sod the kids," he said, as they found all the cleaning gear.  " _I'd_ like a miniature set to play with."

Ron grinned.  "Yeah, me too!  Wouldn't that be something?  You could play all seven positions at once."

"Brilliant.  I wouldn't have minded trying a Chaser position," Harry admitted as they opened up the door in the pantry and walked through the servants' quarters.  "I wasn't about to say that in front of idiots like Flint and Higgs, though, let alone Malfoy."

"Stupid gits.  Sometimes in practice, Gryffindor all switch places.  It gives people a break to try something new and gives them a bit of perspective on how other positions play.  Stops a lot of stupid rows too."

"Yeah?  I always thought it'd be a good way to shake people up, but all Higgs wanted to do was try out moves he'd seen some player from the Wanderers make at their last game."

"He's left school now, hasn't he?" Ron said, as Harry unlocked the door into the Lesser Hall.

"Yeah.  Good riddance."

"Who'll be your team captain next year, then?"

"Dunno."  Harry did a quick mental review of the team.  "They're all idiots, so take your pick.  Peter Lilywhite's a pureblood and I suppose he's as good a Chaser as any of them."

"What about you?" Ron suggested quietly.

Harry snorted.  "Snape hates my guts!  He'll never promote me."

"He's a prat then.  You're easily the best player of the bunch.  You're _definitely_ the best Seeker in the four teams."

Harry shrugged.  "Maybe.  But Snape's only interested in the Quidditch team because it's a way to score over McGonagall and make Slytherin look good.  He's no fan of the game for its own sake and he doesn't have much opinion of Quidditch players as people."

"Sounds about right for the miserable git."

The Morning Room looked as dismal as it had the day before.  This side of the house got most of the morning light, but strong sunlight didn't do much to improve things and after a quick look around, Harry went to examine the door that Sirius had said led into the study.  There was another door further down the hall which presumably led into it as well, but Harry thought they might as well try this one first.

Like a lot of the woodwork in these rooms, the door had been painted with a dark brown gloss which had cracked and turned dull in the intervening period.  It had a tarnished brass doorknob shaped like a snake - a recurring motif in the house - and there were a few remnants of cobwebs clinging to it. 

"Do you reckon it's stuck like the others?" Ron asked, reaching out to turn the knob.

Seeker reflexes were all that saved him. 

Harry snatched his friend's hand back just in time; the snake uncoiled like a streak of dull gold fire and lunged at Ron, jaws wide and fangs bared.  Harry dragged Ron back further as it hissed and snapped, and it was only when they were nearly six feet away that it subsided, coiling and uncoiling and watching them with dead eyes.

"Shit," Ron managed feebly, but he was shaking like a leaf.  "How - how did you know - ?"

Harry was feeling decidedly shaken up too.  "I felt it Animate just before it moved."

"Christ …."

"It might not even be a proper handle.  Remember there was a snake-thing in here when we all came in the first time?"

"So how do we get past it?"

It was encouraging that Ron seemed to see this only as an obstacle to be got around, rather than a serious impediment that required expert assistance, and gratifying that he seemed to think Harry would have an answer for him.  Harry himself wasn't so sure, though.

"Stay here a sec."  He pulled his wand out and approached the door cautiously.

The snake bared its fangs at him, and it was remarkably easy to think of it as 'snake' rather than 'inanimate object'.

"Back!" Harry snapped at it in Parseltongue.  "Let me through!"

The snake's head wove from side to side.  Then:

 _"Password."_

"Bugger!" Harry said angrily, retreating.  "Damn thing wants a password!"

"Any ideas?" Ron asked.

"Not a clue."

This was more than annoying; it meant that probably no one would be able to get into the room until Sirius - or perhaps Andromeda - arrived.  Harry muttered under his breath and kicked the flaking skirting board in frustration.

"Maybe it's something quite simple," Ron suggested. 

Harry wondered if all Gryffindors were so optimistic.  "What, in this house?  Not likely!"

"Well, we're not going anywhere so we might as well think about it a bit and try a few words - see if anything works.  Yeah?"

"Actually, we could try opening that door in the courtyard that leads into the ballroom," Harry said impatiently.  "Sirius said we might do that today anyway."

"He said to wait for Bill or Kingsley Shacklebolt before we tackled that," Ron reminded him.  "He must think there's something bad waiting in there."

"He said to wait for them before we tackled the study too," Harry retorted.  "So what - do you want to just give up and go back to gardening until someone turns up?"

There was a pause, then Ron said quietly.  "No, but I think we need to be a bit careful, because no one knows we're here and if anything goes wrong it could be hours before someone comes to find us."

He was right, of course, and Harry made himself relax and acknowledge that.  Snapping at Ron was stupid just because they couldn't open a door.

"Sorry," he muttered.  "What do you think we should try, then?"

Ron shrugged.  "How about "alohomora"?  We might as well try the common stuff first."

"Okay."  Harry approached the door again.  _"Alohomora!"_   The snake uncoiled like a whip, hissing and snapping, and Harry jumped back quickly.  "I guess that's a no."  He tried a few more unlocking spells that he had learned while studying for his Charms NEWT, but nothing seemed to work.  "That's that then.  Any other ideas?"

They looked around the bare room for inspiration.  Harry's eyes fell on the mantelpiece over the fireplace; it was a heavy, carved feature made of a dark wood like ebony, and full of carved leaves and creatures.  The centre piece was a coat of arms with the Black family motto on a ribbon underneath.

He went back to the door.  _"Toujours pur."_   The snake-handle rejected him again.  "It could just be that you have to be a Black to make it work," he remarked, returning to Ron's side.

"Could be.  Still …."  Ron was looking at the snake thoughtfully.  "Do you reckon it's just Animated to do the one thing?  Or can you talk to it?"

"I don't think you can have a conversation with it," Harry said, surprised. 

"You never know.  Try."

"Hm."  Dubious, Harry went back to the door once more.  "Do you speak?" he asked the snake in Parseltongue. 

 _"Piss off."_

Well … that was interesting. 

"Who created you?"  No reply.  Harry racked his brains for a different tack.  "Name your master!"

The snake uncoiled more slowly.  _"Petronius Aloysius Black of the most noble and ancient house of Black is my master."_

Ron was encouraged when Harry told him this.  "Who's Petronius Aloysius Black?"

Harry shook his head.  "Don't know.  Not Sirius's dad, anyway - he was called Gaius, I think."  He concentrated on the snake again.  "Tell me the password."

 _"Piss off!"_

"Whoever Petronius Black was, he knew how to swear," Harry remarked to Ron.  "It won't tell me the password."

"I didn't think it would."  Ron was now looking intensely thoughtful.  "You said Flitwick had you Animating carvings, right?"

"Yeah …."

"So maybe _this_ snake won't talk to you, but - "  Ron pointed to the carved mantelpiece.  There were several snakes in the pattern.  "Could you Animate one of these and talk to it?  Because if someone used the password to this door regularly, then - then maybe one of these heard it?" he finished a little uncertainly.

It was a stretch, but Harry had to admire his friend for some very creative thinking.

"It's worth a try."

Harry examined the mantelpiece carefully first, running his fingers over the carvings and following the sinuous shapes of the snakes where they wove in and out of sharply pointed leaves and ugly flowers.  At least two of them had been badly carved, so that portions of the bodies didn't match up properly with heads that reappeared later in the pattern.  Another one seemed to be involved in a fight with a jarvey and Harry wasn't sure he could Animate the snake and not the jarvey as well.  But the coat of arms itself was surrounded by a loop that was a snake with the head overlapping the tail and the jaws bared outwards towards the room.  That one was a possibility, even if it looked the most aggressive of the bunch.

Harry reached out with his left hand, holding it inches away from the carvings and made the pass with his wand that Professor Flitwick had taught him.  Like much of the magic he had learned over the holiday it was performed wordlessly, involving only concentration and controlled direction of power.

The carvings shivered and seemed to come to life.

"Okay, that wasn't what I meant to do," Harry muttered, disgruntled.  The entire mantelpiece was shivering with movement as the snakes wriggled around and the plants seemed to sway in response.  The jarvey resumed its fight with the snake, several rats popped out of the vegetation and scurried about - they hadn't even been obvious in the woodwork before - and two large ravens supporting the shield in the coat of arms cawed and flapped their wings.

Ron's eyes were huge.  "That's amazing!"

"Not really.  Making carved reliefs move is pretty basic stuff, according to Professor Flitwick."

"Yeah, but they're making noises and everything!"

Well, okay, maybe that _was_ pretty clever.  Harry grinned a little, but turned his attention to the snake that was coiling slowly around the shield.

"Speak to me," he commanded it in Parseltongue.

 _"Yes?"_

That was something.  Harry hadn't been sure if it would actually respond to Parseltongue commands, despite being Animated.  After all, he wasn't a Master of the art yet by a long shot.

"Name your master," he said to it.

There was a pause; the snake uncoiled a little, extending itself forward from the carvings towards Harry.  It's carved, blackened wooden eyes seemed to examine him.

 _"You are my master."_

Harry's palms began to sweat with concentration.  "I'm Harry Potter.  Name your master."

 _"Harry Potter is my master."_

"Tell me the password to the door into the study."

There was an even longer pause.  The snake seemed to sway a little.  Then its jaws parted -

 _"Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal."_

Harry was taken aback. 

"Say it again," he ordered, after a moment.  The snake repeated it. 

"Did it work?" Ron asked tensely.

Harry dared not reply.  Mouthing the words over and over, he hurried back to the study door.

"Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal," he quoted clearly to the snake-lock.  For good measure he said them in English; however _he_ might have discovered the password, it was unlikely to be in Parseltongue, given the rarity of Parselmouths.

There was a flash and a loud click - and the snake was suddenly a solid brass doorknob again.  The door swung open.

"Bloody hell!" Ron said excitedly.  "You did it!  That's brilliant, mate!"

He thumped Harry on the shoulder gently and Harry grinned at him, suddenly a bit shaky with the release of tension.  Then he remembered the Animated mantelpiece and went to remove the enchantment.

"Thank you," he said to the snake politely just before he raised his wand, and he was a little surprised when the snake seemed to dip its head in a bow.

 

xXx

 

Bearing in mind the care the others said they had taken when entering each new room, Harry and Ron approached the newly-opened door cautiously.

"Reckon it'll be another pile of mouldy furniture in there?" Ron asked, but his voice was hushed with excitement. 

After all, this was a _study_.  The Breakfast Room and Morning Room had obvious, limited domestic functions, but the word "study" suggested something much more important.  Especially as it had merited a complicated password; that implied that not everyone in the household would have had access to it.

"Wands at the ready?" Harry suggested, as they edged towards the door.

In reply, Ron pulled his own wand out.  Harry carefully extended one hand, trying to feel if there was any kind of ward or illusory field in place over the door.  He normally got tickles of magic from the most innocuous things (books for example) but apart from a residual trace of spells near the lock on the door, there was nothing, not even on the threshold.

"Nothing," he reported, straightening up and wiping his hand absently on his jeans.

They both peered very carefully through the doorway.

Nothing threw them into a restraining ward, dumped them into an oubliette or otherwise tried to attack them.  Instead they found themselves staring into a very dusty, cobweb-festooned room filled with handsomely appointed and rather masculine looking furniture.  Most prominent was the enormous desk over by the windows, set at just the right angle to catch the best of the morning light without hurting the user's eyes.  It was heavily carved to look as though the worktop rested on the backs of two immense snakes which coiled down to the floor to form the legs and feet, and a matching chair stood behind it.  There were elegant carved wooden trays on one corner of the desk, full of papers and rolled parchment; a beautiful gilded inkwell and quill-stand full of the finest old quills (now dusty and moth-eaten); and sundry other items, including two small, tarnished picture frames.  There was a bookcase against one wall, with glass-fronted doors, filled with the kind of regimented, leather-bound books that reminded Harry of a lawyer's office, and a couple of other chairs with padded leather seats and curving arms in front of the desk, also with legs formed from carved snakes.  A heavy, gilded chandelier, still with candle-stubs in it, hung from the ceiling, the floor was covered in a thick green carpet (inches deep in dust and badly faded towards the window edge), and there was another fireplace and mantelpiece matching the one in the Morning Room exactly and backing onto the same dividing wall. 

Over the mantelpiece hung a large portrait, the occupant of whom turned to look at them with raised brows as they took tentative steps into room.  She was a slender, upright witch in Restoration costume, with long dusky curls, the heavy-lidded Black eyes and a secretive little smile.  For a moment Harry thought it was Cousin Susannah, but quickly realised that she couldn't be - she was too old, looking to be in early middle age. 

For a moment the two boys stared at her, nonplussed, then Harry shrugged mentally.

"Good morning," he said politely, and he offered her a small bow.  After a moment, Ron followed his lead.

She had been sitting in a chair very similar to the ones in the study, waving a beautifully painted fan idly, but when Harry spoke she lowered it.

"Good day."  She had a low, rich voice and Harry decided at once that she must have been able to sing - there was just something in the way she spoke that suggested it.  "Might one ask how two young men, both of whom are clearly _not_ members of my family, have entered this room?  What can you mean by it, I wonder?"

She sounded amused rather than angry.  Harry shot a quick glance at Ron, who was turning a familiar embarrassed pink; he didn't seem to know what to say.  Harry wasn't sure either, but he knew one thing; whoever this woman was, she was a Black and he wasn't about to go blurting out their knowledge of the password until he knew a bit more about her.  So he bowed again.

"Henry Potter the Younger, ma'am."  He was a little disconcerted at how easily his full name tripped off his tongue.  "And this is my friend - "

He had to nudge Ron, who started and bowed quickly.

"Ronald Weasley, ma'am."

"So," she said lightly.  "A descendent, no doubt, of Rupert Potter, and a friend.  Well met; I am Clothilde Black.  And I would ask again - why are two young men unconnected with my family invading this room?"

"Sirius Black is my guardian, ma'am, and the head of the family," Harry explained.  "We're cleaning the house and trying to make it liveable again."

"Indeed?  _Sirius_ , you say?"  Now she definitely looked amused.  To their surprise, she suddenly stood up.  "Well, I am most entertained, I vow!  Pray excuse me - I have business elsewhere."

And she walked out of her portrait.

"Probably just as well," Ron said, after a moment.  "I don't think I'd be comfortable poking around here with her watching."

"No, but - I wonder where she's gone?" Harry said.  "She must have gone to one of the other portraits in the house, right?  Unless she has a portrait somewhere else?"

"Like where?" Ron asked.  He looked concerned.  "She wouldn't have a portrait in the Malfoy house or somewhere like that, would she? "

"No idea."  Harry shrugged and let it go.  "Nothing we could do to stop her, even if she _has_ gone to the Malfoys.   Come on, let's take a look around."

They trod slowly and warily across the carpet, but no hexes appeared to be lying in wait to trip them up.  In fact, Harry was privately beginning to wonder if Sirius had allowed his prejudices to make him unnecessarily paranoid; so far it all seemed very tame to him, especially in comparison to some of the features of the Slytherin dormitories at Hogwarts.  In fact, the most sinister thing about the room was the ticking of a clock hanging on the wall opposite the desk.

Harry went over to look at it.  It had a small, narrow case, perhaps fourteen inches in length by six inches in width, and it hung next to the door that led directly out into the little hall.  The clock matched the furniture and the two mantelpieces, being made of very dark wood and carved with leaves and snakes, and it had a long pendulum with a weight at the bottom shaped like a coiled snake.  The pendulum was swinging steadily.  There were two faces, one superimposed on the other; the uppermost was an ordinary twelve hour dial beautifully engraved in gold and inlaid with green enamel, with jewelled hands, while the lower dial, perhaps two inches wider than the first face, was of a darker red gold that was also inlaid with green enamel and engraved with esoteric runes that meant nothing to Harry.  This dial had no hands but a curious pair of jewelled arrows that moved slowly but steadily around the dial, one clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. 

"You wouldn't think it would still be running, would you?" he remarked to Ron.  "It's on time too."

But Ron wasn't surprised.  "Some wizard clocks and watches are only supposed to need winding once in a hundred years.  See the name on the dial?  Chronos and Sons - they've been making clocks since they were invented.  All their clocks and watches have a century-long guarantee, supposedly.  I wouldn't know, though.  They're dead expensive, way out of my range."

The name of the clockmaker rang a bell with Harry. 

"One of my trustees gave me my grandfather's pocket watch on my birthday," he said.  "He told me that Chronos and Sons had guaranteed it wouldn't need looking at again for … well, a couple of generations." 

"There you go," Ron said, with a shrug.  He looked around.  "So – what do you want to do here?"

Harry wasn't sure.  The previous rooms had required nothing more complicated than stripping out the damaged furnishings.  This room, although incredibly dusty, looked far less decrepit.

"We could open the other door for a start," he said, and went to check the handle and lock.  So far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with it; he reached out and turned the handle and the door swung open quite easily.  Another anticlimax.  Harry turned back to Ron.

"Let's take a look at that desk," he decided.

"The drawers are probably locked," Ron pointed out, but he followed willingly.

Harry looked in the trays on the desk first, picking up scrolls and documents, blowing the dust off them and squinting at the faded ink.  Ron picked one up too, but when he could make out the cramped and (he thought) unnecessarily ornamental writing, it seemed to be something about purchasing furniture. 

"It's an invoice, I think," he reported.  "A bed for the 'yellow guest chamber'?"

"This is similar stuff," Harry replied.  "It's all stuff like household accounts.  Sirius'll have to look at them, but it can't be really important, can it?  Not after a decade or more."

"Hard to tell," Ron said.  "So there's not much we can do in here, then.  There wasn't even a decent curse to tackle!"  But he grinned at his friend.

Harry looked less convinced.  "We saw those footprints coming in here though, on the first day.  Did you see any marks in the dust?"

They looked around, picking their way carefully back through their own prints.  Ron finally found a couple of marks near the door, although they were already partially hidden under more dust.  They seemed to stop at the edge of the carpet though.

"Where did they go?" he said, puzzled.

"Roll the carpet up a bit," Harry said, so they both grabbed the edge of it, coughing at the clouds of dust it released, and pushed it back.  It was surprisingly heavy.  Underneath were polished hardwood boards.

"Nothing," Ron said, disappointed.  Then he saw Harry running his hand over them.  "Can you feel something?  An illusion?"

"More like a concealment spell," Harry said, and when he looked up at Ron his face was alight with excitement.  "There's like a fine crack here – " and he drew his finger across the boards.  "It fits really tightly, but it's a door I think.  No handle or lock, and the charm is really strong."

"I wish I could do that," Ron remarked enviously. 

"I can't do it all the time," Harry said, a shadow crossing his face.  "Sometimes it feels like I can't do any magic at all.  And then other times it feels like everything around me ought to be transfiguring itself because there's so much magic in me and it feels like it's almost _leaking_ …."

Ron stared at him.  "Is that normal?  I mean, should you feel like your magic is unpredictable like that?  Because mine never does that."

"Must be another weird me-thing," Harry muttered, straightening up and dusting his hands on his jeans.  He couldn't look Ron in the eye.

"Hey – hey, it's okay!  I'm not saying it's wrong or – or abnormal!  I'm just saying …."  Ron paused, disconcerted.  "I'm just worried about you, all right?  So much crap happens to you, and it's not fair – you shouldn't have to just keep putting up with stuff like this.  And I know I can't do much about some of it, but you can tell me about it anyway.  If that helps."

Now they were both red-faced and unable to look each other in the eye, but Harry was warmed by Ron's awkward avowal of support.

"It helps," he managed.  "It helps a lot."

"Well … good.  That's good."  A pause.  "So what are we going to do now?"

Harry bit his lip and surveyed the rolled-up carpet again.  He crouched down once more and ran first his hand and then his wand over the concealed door. 

"Come here," he said to Ron, and the redhead crouched beside him.  Harry grabbed his right hand (forcing himself to ignore the warmth and strength of it) and ran it over the spot where the trapdoor fitted tightly against the boards of the floor.  "Feel that?"

Ron concentrated.  "Feels like there ought to be a crack against the grain?"

"That's it!  But it's really straight and runs right to left through four floorboards."  Harry began to trace it with the tips of his fingers until he found the corners of the trapdoor.  "Damn – I wish we had some chalk.  I could draw around it …."

"Maybe there's something in the quill-stand on the desk." 

Ron jumped up and went to look, while Harry rolled more of the carpet back, feeling his way around the edge of the door.  After a moment or two, Ron returned and pushed a fat stump of white chalk into Harry's hand, grinning at his friend's surprise.

"Lots of wizards keep it near to hand, didn't you know that?  My dad does, and so does Bill.  It's handy when you have to set strong wards on anything – you can draw a line to guide you and set the wards along it, then dust the line out again.  I reckoned old man Black would have some if he was the sort to do Dark magic, since it stands to reason you'd need pretty strong wards for it."

Harry felt like an idiot as soon as Ron said this.  Time and again he'd come out of his tower after a full moon and seen chalky marks near the doors, but it had never occurred to him to ask why.  _Now_ he could see that they were the ward boundaries Sirius had drawn.

"Can't you do it without?" he asked.

Ron shrugged.  "Of course.  Like I said, it's only necessary when you need to get them just right.  You _could_ do stronger ones without guidelines, I suppose, especially if you're someone like Dumbledore, but it's riskier.  Depends on how important it is for the wards to be sealed tight."

That made sense to Harry.  Setting it aside for future thought, he took the chalk and began to run it along the edge of the trapdoor.  Interestingly, once the crack was chalked up the illusion began to fade, making it possible even for Ron to see the outline of the trapdoor more clearly.  There was no handle or obvious lock, though, no matter how they searched.




So they began to try various unlocking charms again, Harry racking his brains for the many examples he'd unearthed during the past term at school.

"This isn't going to work, is it?" Ron said, after several minutes of firing spells at the door.

Harry sat back on his heels, thinking hard.  They had come this far – to be thwarted now would be galling beyond measure.

"Maybe it's not just a charm we need?" he suggested.  "Maybe we could try a charm and, I don't know, force something into the crack to encourage it a bit?"

"There was a letter-opener on the desk," Ron said, brightening, and he went to get it.

This was a pleasing little tool, shaped like a small dagger with a coiled snake around the hilt and a fine, pointed tip.  They found a place on the edge of the door where the crack was marginally wider, inserted the tip of the letter-opener, and Harry pumped as much power behind his _alohomora_ as he dared while Ron cranked the blade.

 _Clunk!_

The trapdoor lifted up a couple of inches and the two boys cheered.  Scrabbling fingers fought to get a purchase on the lip of wood and they pulled; the door shot up a couple more inches, letting out a breath of damp, algae-scented air – and something shrieked, shooting out of the gap between the trapdoor and the floor.

Ron jumped back with a yelp and Harry nearly lost the tips of his fingers as the trapdoor dropped back into place with a heavy snap.  The creature that had escaped – it was impossible to put a name to it, but it had a long Dachshund-shaped body and head and eight little legs – wheeled around with another high-pitched squeal.  Harry got a brief impression of long, razor-sharp teeth and ivory-coloured scales before it let out a belch of flame that just missed him and raced for the open door into the hall.

"Don't let it get away!" he yelled to Ron, and they took off after it.

It was astonishingly fast for such an ungainly looking beast, with a gait somewhere between a dog and a spider that really covered the ground.  Harry chased it to the stairs, thinking that the steps might confound it, but to his shock it ran straight up the wall that ran parallel to the staircase and kept going.  Determined not to let it escape, Harry followed and he could hear Ron pounding behind him as he took the stairs two at a time.

No one had yet ventured further up the staircase than was necessary to remove the handful of pictures hanging on the wall there.  It turned back on itself like a hairpin halfway and when Harry emerged at the top it was into a twilight passage full of dust, cobwebs and decrepit old furnishings.

Harry whipped his wand across in front of him in a broad sweep. 

 _"Lumos maxima!"_

Lamps all down the passage flickered into life. 

The creature paused for a second up near the mouldings where the walls met the ceiling, perhaps confused by the sudden light.  It let out another squeal of rage and leapt from its spot on the wall to the floor, dashing across the carpet in a cloud of dust towards the blank wall opposite the head of the stairs.  There was nothing there but a narrow table with an ancient crocheted doily on top of it and a lamp sconce above, but the creature disappeared between the table legs – and seemed to vanish through the solid wall.

"What the hell - !" Ron gasped.  "Where did it go?"

Advancing across the carpet warily, Harry crouched down and peered under the table.  He could see nothing but an age-darkened strip of skirting.

"Let's move this table," he said, straightening up.

It was a light, spindly piece of furniture that served no useful purpose that either of them could see.  They moved it easily to one side (brushing away cobwebs and expelling spiders in the process), leaving a lighter patch against the dirty wallpaper.

Harry touched the paper gingerly.  "I don't think this is just a wall," he said after a moment, and he turned eyes that were brilliant with excitement to his friend.  "This house is riddled with hidden stuff!  I bet there's really another door here!"

"Yeah, but can we get it open?" Ron asked more prosaically.

"Let's get that letter-opener and try!"

Ron couldn't help feeling a some misgivings – this was, after all, in a part of the house that no one had even discussed investigating yet – but Harry's excitement was contagious and he raised no objections as they once again fought to find the edges of a door and marked them out with chalk.  This time, however, it very clearly _was_ a door in the wall and, unlike the moderately hidden trapdoor or the door in the servants' wing that had been concealed and forgotten, it had been purposely designed to escape even determined  notice.  Ron couldn't feel a trace of it, even when Harry marked out the edges of the lintels, and Harry himself was in awe of the care that had been taken to construct it.

"The paper's an illusion here and there's a crack in the plaster that's incredibly fine and smooth," he reported.  He was feeling with the tips of his fingers but his nose was almost pressed against the paper too.  "It's amazing.  I can't feel a hinge or anything, so I wonder how it opens?  Could it swing from the top?"  That was almost beyond his reach.  "Nope.  Can't feel anything there either."

"Maybe it pushes back and slides behind another section of the wall?" Ron suggested.  "There's a passage behind the panelling on the Charms corridor at school that does that."

"Then maybe we don't need any unusual way of getting inside – perhaps we just need to know where to press?"  Harry shook his head.  "It would help to get rid of this illusion but it's resisting ….  Try sticking the letter-opener in here - "

It felt like he was digging the little knife into solid plaster, but Ron did as he was told, and was surprised when Harry, instead of trying any unlocking charms, simply leaned against the wall and shoved as hard as he could.  After a moment Ron did the same and was delighted to feel the wall giving slightly under their combined weight.

"It's moving!  It's moving!"

It was hard to get decent purchase on the carpet but the two of them dug their toes in and pushed with all their might.  The wall gave up with a sudden sigh, sliding away from under them, and they tumbled into another cool, dark passage.

"Don't let it shut behind us!" Ron gasped.

Harry jammed a foot into the gap just before the door could softly shut itself again, and Ron waved the letter-opener.

"We could stick this in there to hold it open …."

 _"Lumos!"_ Harry said quickly, impatient with the lack of light, and both of their wands lit up.  "Let's push the door back again – " he suited action to words "and you stick the knife in at the bottom to hold it.  And just in case, I'll get that table and put it here so that it can't shut even if the knife gives."

"Got to admit, I feel a lot more secure with that table there," Ron admitted, when this was done.  "I'd hate to get stuck in here when no one knows where we are."

"They'd see our footprints in the dust," Harry said, with more confidence than he actually felt.  Then he looked around and held his wand up.  "Bloody hell!  _Lumos maxima!_ "

But no lights responded to the charm.

"Looks like whoever used this place brought a lamp with them," Ron observed.  He held his wand up.  "What is it anyway?"  He swung around and the delicate light fell on a bookcase.  "Crikey – it looks like a library."

"They must be pretty unusual books then," Harry said, going to look.  "There's already a whopping great library next to the study, according to Sirius."  He studied the spines of the books.  "All the titles are in other languages.  That's a bit boring."

"Harry …." Ron said in a strangled tone, and Harry swung around.

Ron had advanced further into the room and was staring with popping eyes at a waist-high pedestal on which stood a piece of sculpture.  Harry walked over to look too – and stopped in front of it, staring and feeling his mouth turn oddly dry.

The weird thing was that even though his eyes were having a hard time understanding exactly what was going on with the sculpture, his brain seemed to realise that it was something not quite normal anyway.  It was Pan.  At least, it was either Pan or some other satyr – whoever it was, it was a man with goaty legs and little horns, so it was as likely to be Pan as not.  And there was a goat, which was lying on its back and Pan was holding onto the goat's beard with one hand while he … did something to the goat.

"Harry," Ron said weakly, "that goat is having sex with Pan!"

 _Well, that's an odd way of putting it,_ a prosaic little voice said in Harry's head, and with that his eyes and brain seemed to start working in tandem again and the image suddenly made sense.

Not that this did anything to dispel his shock.  Not even the mural in the bath-house or the sex manual Sirius had given him at Easter had prepared him for _this._  

There was a little sign pinned to the plinth the statue stood on; handwritten in neat capitals on a square of white card, it said _Replica of sculpture found in the buried Roman city of Pompeii in 1760._ It was a little like seeing an exhibit in a gallery or museum, only this was plainly something else entirely and in any case Harry had a hard time imagining most galleries putting such a thing on public display. 

When he could drag his eyes away from the statue, Harry raised his wand above his head and looked around.

"There's more," he said, and he was embarrassed at the way the words came out all high and nervous, like a kid peeking at a women's underwear catalogue or something.  He thought he heard Ron whimper in response.  But when he stepped around the pedestal to go and look, his friend was right behind him.

The hour that followed was a revelation.  The room was full of extraordinary things – erotic sculpture, pieces of mosaic or frescoes with images of frolicking people and animals, and paintings and other forms of artwork with erotically charged scenes.  There was a floor to ceiling glass-fronted case; the lowest shelf held a collection of ancient little terracotta lamps shaped like phalluses, while another shelf higher up held a score of exquisite enamelled snuff-boxes from another era entirely, all bearing tiny scenes of debauchery on the lids and sides.  In another case that was suspended several feet above the ground and was nearly four feet wide, there was a long sheet of parchment painted with scene after scene of sexual positions ranging from singular acts of masturbation to orgies of ten or more characters, all in black and white oriental brushwork.

Shock gave way to embarrassed sniggers, which in turn gave way to astonished fascination.  Ron discovered a set of wind-chimes hanging from the ceiling, each one cast in the shape of a tiny penis with wings.  Harry found a drawer in a cabinet that was full of sheet music which, upon further investigation, turned out to be the scores for numerous bawdy songs.  Another drawer in the same cabinet yielded a collection of eighteenth century cartoons, mostly of overweight, red-faced wizards having sex with dishevelled and enthusiastic witches - or other wizards - or horses - or ….  As most of the material was of magical origin, naturally the images weren't stationary either _._

The room was large and the collection just seemed to go on and on, suitably annotated by more of the neatly written little signs.  There was a collection of erotic automata in one place; in another there was a table covered with musical instruments shaped like genitalia (Harry was particularly amused by a pair of breast-shaped maracas, although this was topped by Ron's discovery of a musical box that played nothing but erotic grunts and cries).  One section was entirely devoted to sex toys of every description and widely varying ages, many of which neither of the boys could even guess at the exact purpose of.

There were even chairs (also carved with erotic images) set at intervals, presumably so that the viewer could take the weight off his feet while he admired a particular display.  Not all the seating in the room was innocent in its intent, though.  A small wooden bench with a seat that was carved to resemble the supine figure of a naked young man seemed harmless enough but a matching chair, where one presumably sat on the lap of the male figure that formed it, had one anatomically correct detail that sent both boys reeling backwards with astonished sniggers when they saw it.

"I'll have to get M-mum one of those for our s-sitting room!" Ron wheezed when he could control himself enough to speak.

Harry let out a crack of laughter and hastily turned away, only to be confronted by yet another display – this time of a complete china tea service including, inevitably, a large teapot with a penis-shaped spout.  And he didn't even want to guess at what the sugar bowl was supposed to represent.  Enough already.  He hiccupped hysterically and grabbed a handful of Ron's t-shirt.

"Lunch!" he managed, and the pair of them made a quick exit.

"What do you reckon that room was?" Ron asked a short while later, when they were sitting at the kitchen table.  "Some kind of private collection?"

"Must be," Harry replied.  "Although people must have seen it, because – well, it had signs and everything."  He pushed half a sandwich around his plate and tried to suppress another smirk.  It was extremely difficult; his brain seemed to have turned into a gigantic question-mark to which the only possible reaction was rude laughter.

"And _everything!_ " Ron chortled, and they both fell about laughing again.

"Seriously, though," Ron continued, when they'd got control of themselves again, "are you going to tell Sirius that we found it?"

"Do I want to have a conversation with Sirius about a hidden Chamber of Porn?" Harry said, peeling the half-sandwich apart and adding more horseradish sauce to the thick slice of beef in the middle.  "Um, no, not really.  It was bad enough when he and Remus forced me to listen to a load of advice about gay sex at Easter."

Ron made a horrified face.  "Good point!"  He munched thoughtfully on a pickled gherkin for a moment, and Harry tried not to laugh at the image this made.  "Besides, they'll probably find it themselves at some point."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final scene of this chapter was originally posted, with a framing story, as a separate ficlet called "Blue Brocade".

When Sirius finally dragged himself downstairs the afternoon was well advanced.  He paused in the kitchen to get himself a glass of water and noticed that two people had apparently had lunch, for there were two plates, mugs and sets of cutlery drying on the draining board by the sink.  There was also a covered cauldron of potatoes and carrots, peeled and submerged in cold water, beside the range and another large, covered glass bowl filled with cleaned salad leaves also under cold water.  The beginnings of dinner.

Harry, without a doubt.  He was a good kid.

Hearing some distant noises from the pantry, Sirius walked slowly through the passage into the main house and found one of the doors open into the storerooms that they hadn't looked at yet.  Harry and Ron were in the central courtyard, examining a set of eight upright chairs, all of which were in a state of severe disrepair.  Several other articles of ancient and battered furniture were littered around the area, including two leather armchairs with the horsehair stuffing erupting from split seats and a odd little three-cornered table with a under-slung drawer that was barely hanging on by a nail.

"Hey," he said quietly, and they looked up.  "What are you doing?"

"None of the others turned up," Harry said, wiping his hands on jeans that were already quite dirty.  "We thought we'd have a look at the stuff in the storerooms until you got up.  Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Sirius assured him.  "Just knackered."  He noted with a little private amusement that poking around in the storerooms was clearly not all the two teenagers had been up to.  He was getting used to the sight of them both with shower-damp hair, and Harry's previous hickey had been joined by another reddish mark on his neck just under his left ear.  Sirius wondered if he'd somehow missed it or if he knew it was there and simply didn't care.  "I told the others not to come today," he said after a moment.  "I didn't think Remus or I would be up to messing about with the house much."

"Oh."  Harry looked disconcerted.  "Well, we started anyway."

"It's okay – I know you're not stupid or careless.  What have you found so far?"

"Ron found four Galleons, seven Sickles and fifteen Knuts down the back of that ugly little couch over there," Harry offered, waving a hand towards an example of the kind of dainty couch that had been common in rich ladies' dressing rooms in the Regency period.  It was upholstered in a nauseating shade of pink damask with silver fringing that was ripped and hanging off the corners.

"Finder's keeper," Sirius said, and he hid a smile at Ron's brightening expression.  "That's a fraction of what we owe you for helping out here.  Find anything else?"

"A lot of really useless, broken furniture," Ron said.  "Why do people keep stuff like that if they're not going to fix it?"

"I don't know," Sirius admitted, giving one of the chairs a cursory examination.  The legs all seemed to be loose and many years in storage had taken the surface off the wood, leaving it dull and feeling sticky where the varnish was decomposing.  "Maybe they thought they _were_ going to fix it sometime.  I don't think it's worth the effort now, though."  He straightened up.  "I remember this set of chairs," he added idly.  "It was in one of the card rooms just off the ballroom.  My parents held a big party when I was – I don't know - maybe twelve?  Most of the guests were in the ballroom, but a group of my father's friends were playing cards and a quarrel started – probably over someone cheating.  Anyway, there was a challenge called and the two wizards involved had a duel there and then.  Made a terrific mess – I think my mother had to redecorate that room completely afterwards, there wasn't a bit of furniture that wasn't damaged and at least two of the witnesses had to be taken to St. Mungo's the same night."

"Did you see it?" Harry asked, interested.

"Nah.  Regulus and I weren't considered old enough to do more than put on our best robes and present ourselves to the ladies for half an hour over tea, before the dancing started.  We got a blow by blow account from the portraits the next day."

"Huh.  Well, I don't reckon it's worth repairing this lot," Harry said frankly.  "There's a pair of trapdoors in the floor of the storeroom, though.  We were trying to clear enough stuff off them to get them open."

"That'll probably be the entrance to the wine cellar," Sirius said with a nod.  "Inconvenient, but that doesn't matter when it's only the House-elves who are going to be using it.  That other entrance – the stairs by the door into the main house – probably leads to the workroom Snape remembers using.  More convenient because the master of the house is going to be using it, see?"

Harry frowned.  "It's a pretty shit way to treat the elves."

"I know."  Sirius changed the subject.  "Do you need a hand?  I don't know that I'm up to much, to be honest, but – "

"We got the door to the study open as well," Ron said abruptly, and when Harry looked at him sharply he shrugged.  "The door's open.  Sort of gives the game away, don't you think?"

"How did you manage that?" Sirius demanded, more than a little impressed.  "I remember it being password locked and I thought we might have to blast it open."

"We found the password," Harry said, and there was a trace of smugness in his voice that made his godfather grin.  "We didn't do anything in there, though, because there's a desk full of papers and we thought you'd probably want to take a look."

"Stuff of my old man's," Sirius remarked.  "I'll have to go through it, though I suppose most of it only needs burning.  Anything else?  Any dodgy creatures yet?"

The two boys looked at each other.

"We found a trapdoor under the carpet," Ron confessed, "and when we managed to get it open a crack, a _thing_ came out."

"It looked like a small dog with eight legs," Harry put in.  "Only it had scales and it could breathe fire."

"Nice," Sirius said sardonically.  "Sounds like something my father would come up with.  What did you do?"

"Nothing - it ran off upstairs and we couldn't find it."

Something in Harry's casual tone suggested that this wasn't quite true, but Sirius wasn't about to hold an inquisition to find out why.  He didn't have the energy.

"Interesting," he said.  "The trapdoor probably leads into the bath-house.  Well, we can have a look at that tomorrow maybe, depending on who turns up.  Look, I'm going to make some tea and take a cup up to Remus.  If you get the trapdoors in the storeroom open, give me a yell and we'll have a look, okay?"

"What about the furniture?" Ron asked.  "Should we just dump it with the rest of the rubbish?"

"Unless you really think it's worth trying to fix."

 

xXx

 

"So what have the three of you been up to today?" Remus asked, as he picked at his dinner. 

He had recovered enough by the evening to sit up in bed and have his dinner on a tray, and Sirius, Harry and Ron joined him in the bedroom to eat their dinners like a buffet off a large tray on a table in the window.

"I've hardly been up to anything," Sirius replied, "but the lads got the study door open – _without_ violence, I might add – and cleared the first of the storage rooms.  They found two trapdoors, and as a result you are the first person in nearly twenty years to sample the contents of my father's wine cellar."

"Good lord, is that what this is?"  Remus watched with amusement as Sirius carefully uncorked a dark amber bottle with a faded label and began to pour a stream of golden liquid into four waiting glasses.

"A Petitparo Blond 1961," Sirius said, "with, I believe, a light, fruity bouquet - and that's about as much as I can tell you.  What does your superior nose say?"

"Fruity is the word, I think.  Thank you."  Remus accepted the glass and held it under his nose.  "Definitely fruit …."  And he took a sip, swirling it around his mouth a little.  "Crisp, apple-tasting – not too dry.  Rather nice, actually."

Harry and Ron were both far more cautious, but when neither of them wrinkled their noses at it Remus smiled.

"More to your taste than the champagne on your birthday, Harry?"

"It's not taking the skin off my tongue," the teenager said, and he took a deeper swallow.

"It'll still lay you out flat if you're not careful," Sirius warned him, amused.  "Go slowly."  He turned back to Remus.  "This came from the first rack – we didn't go much further into the cellar because there were some pretty big webs in there.  Either we've got a colony of Acromantulas down there – " Ron made a pained sound around a mouthful of potato salad, "or the place is infested with Rat-Eating Funnel Spiders.  Which might explain why we've seen less vermin than we expected, but I don't fancy trying to tackle those without help."

"We'll have to set traps initially," Remus said, perking up a little.  "If it's just one or two, it might not be a problem, but if there's a colony we'll need to get a potion to spray the nests with.  But we'll have to trap the adults first.  And if we can catch them alive, there's a dealer I know in Knockturn Alley who'll take them off our hands – in fact, he might trade the live spiders for the potion."

"Who's going to do the trapping?" Ron asked in a faint voice.

Sirius saw his face and chuckled.  "Don't worry, it doesn't have to be you!"

"I can do it," Remus said calmly.  "Best person for the job, really – they have a pretty nasty bite, but werewolves are immune to the venom.  But it'll have to wait a day or two until I'm livelier."

"That's fine," Sirius replied, "because sorting out the wine cellar isn't anything like a priority."  He paused to eat a few bites of his salad, looking thoughtful.  "Actually, I'm starting to think that we're going about this entirely the wrong way.  We're just tackling the rooms as we come to them, and I don't think that's helpful because a lot them won't be of much use.  There's no real point in clearing out my father's study, for example.  It's worth checking the hidden trapdoor Harry and Ron found today – although I'm willing to bet it just opens up into a proper staircase into the bathhouse – but the room itself is of no use at present.  And while I can see the library being of use to us all in the future, it's not the most _immediate_ priority."

"So we need to tackle the ballroom next," Remus said, nodding his agreement.

"Exactly."

"Why?" Harry demanded, looking from one of them to the other.  "I mean, I want to see it but how will it be useful?"

"It's essentially a bloody great open space on one side of the house," Sirius replied.  "It'd make Order meetings a lot easier than trying to cram everyone into the drawing room at Grimmauld Place or risking merry hell from the Ministry by using Hogwarts.  We can spread ourselves out in there too."

"So what's in there at the moment?" Ron asked.

"Portraits of my ancestors, whopping great crystal chandeliers and some very ugly furnishings," Sirius replied.  "There's a gallery for a small orchestra too."

"I seem to remember you telling me there were ghosts," Remus remarked.

"Uncle Percival, you mean?  That was in the dining room.  My mother was always having to put up wards to keep Uncle Percy and his mistress out, or they'd waltz down the centre of the table during a formal dinner and chill the main course on the plates."

"No, I definitely remember you telling Peter and me about the ghosts in the ballroom," Remus insisted.  "It must have been Peter, because I remember James backing you up.  Something to do with a St. Valentine's Day ball and twelve spectral couples insisting on dancing the minuet?  When your mother's orchestra refused to play for them, they brought in a ghost quartet – "

"Oh - yes, now I remember!  It was you, Peter and Lily we were telling and the ghost was Septimus Black.  Six members of my family and half the guests died of poison in the orange sorbet at a St. Valentine's Day ball he threw for his daughter's coming out."  Sirius shook his head.  "I wouldn't worry about them, because they only made a nuisance of themselves at balls and dances."

"So are we cleaning out the ballroom tomorrow?" Harry asked, a little impatiently.

"If Bill turns up, yes," Sirius agreed.  He seemed about to say something else when there was a gentle tap on the door and Professor Dumbledore looked around the edge.

"Forgive me for interrupting," he said, inclining his head to each of them in turn.  "I hoped this evening might be a good time to have a conversation we discussed a little while ago."

"Of course," Remus said at once.  "Come in, Headmaster –forgive me for not getting up – "

"Not at all, my boy.  After last night I'm gratified to see you looking so well today."

            Dumbledore wasn't alone; Bill and Arthur Weasley were with him.

"Ah," Sirius said.  "Bill – just the man I hoped to see.  We were just talking about attacking the ballroom tomorrow.  Harry, can you get a couple more chairs?  There should be at least one in Remus's room."

Harry fetched the chairs and Sirius went down to the kitchen to make some tea, while Ron removed the dinner trays.  By the time they were all sorted out, Mr. Weasley and Bill were sitting in the window and  Professor Dumbledore took a chair nearer the foot of the bed, urging Harry to sit next to him.

"Sirius tells me that we need to have a conversation about your magic later," he told the teenager, patting his arm in a grandfatherly way.  "Perhaps when we are done here, yes?"

"Of course," Harry agreed, although he couldn't decide whether to be annoyed that Sirius had pre-empted him by speaking to Dumbledore about his problems first.  Inexplicably he yawned.  "Sorry – "

"Not at all.  You've been busy today, I'm sure," Dumbledore said, patting his arm again gently.  "You've had several busy weeks.  Rather unfair of us to expect you to work so hard during your holiday, but I believe the effort will be worthwhile in the end, Harry."

Now Harry was embarrassed.  "I'm okay," he asserted.  And he yawned once more.  His eyelids felt absurdly heavy.

"Of course you are," Dumbledore said quietly.  "I have said it before, but it bears repeating: you shoulder a grown wizard's burdens and more, and you do not complain one jot as much as most men would in your position.  You make all of us here proud."

Harry found he had trouble following this.  His eyes were swimming with the effort to keep them open.  "Tired …." he mumbled after a moment.

"Then rest."  Dumbledore reached out and gently touched his head, and Harry slowly slumped down in his chair, his eyes closing irresistibly.  "Sirius, perhaps we might find something to rest his head and feet on."

"Put him on the bed beside me," Remus suggested.

Ron was watching from where he perched on the corner of the bed, his eyes huge, as Sirius carried Harry to the bed as gently as a father and laid him out beside his partner, removing his glasses and putting them on the bedside table.

"What – what did you just do?" he said, suddenly a little frightened of the headmaster.

"I think it far better that Harry should sleep until we are done here," Dumbledore said.  "We have much to discuss with you, Ron, and Harry should not know of it.  For an hour or so he will dream pleasant dreams and then wake refreshed, with no awareness of our conversation here."

Ron glanced at his father anxiously.  "Is something wrong?"

"Not wrong," Arthur Weasley assured him, "but it would be better if your mother doesn't hear of this conversation either, Ron.  She wouldn't like it at all."

"It's about Harry," Remus put in.  "We need your help, if you feel you can give it to us."

Ron looked at them all, taking in their concerned expressions, and suddenly realised that being seventeen didn't mean he was an adult at all.  The atmosphere was too serious, particularly in light of the way Dumbledore had just casually put Harry to sleep in front of him.

"What do you want my help with?" he asked nervously.  "Because Harry's my friend and – "

"It's nothing bad!" Sirius interrupted at once.  "We're not asking you to do anything that could hurt him."

"Far from it," Dumbledore agreed.  "In fact, rather the reverse.  Ron, has Harry talked to you about going back to school in September?"

"No," he said hesitantly.  "I mean, I don't think so.  We haven't really … I mean, we've talked about stuff he's done over the summer.  He said he got his Charms NEWT."

"Are you planning to go back to school?" Remus asked him directly.

"Of course!"  It hadn't occurred to Ron that there was another course open to him.  "I have to take my NEWTs, don't I?  And Mum would kill me if I did a Fred-and-George and just quit."

Sirius grinned at this, but Arthur said seriously, "We can't compel you to go back, Ron.  You've come of age, you don't have to take NEWTs if you don't want to."

Ron began to worry.  "I hadn't thought about it – I don't know what I want to do yet!  So – so I need to get my NEWTs.  Don't I?"

"Ron, mate, it's okay," Bill said hastily.  "We're not worried about _you_.  It's Harry we're concerned about, because he's never really said what he wants to do one way or another."

"That's one of the reasons we're having this conversation," Sirius said.  "Has Harry ever said to you that he might _not_ go back to school?"

"Once – but that was back at Easter," Ron said.  "But I think it was just talk because he was pissed off about something."

"Did he talk about leaving home as well?" Remus asked.

"Well … yeah, but I don't think he'd really thought about it much.  He was just saying it because he was angry."

"What concerns us," Dumbledore put in, "is that Harry may well choose to do that, despite our efforts to discourage it, and that would be a very dangerous course of action for him to take."

"Could he?" Ron asked doubtfully. 

"Money-wise, it's possible.  His allowance was increased on his birthday," Remus replied.  "It's not a lot, but he could certainly live on it if he tried.  He can't live at The Rose House or touch the bulk of his inheritance until he fully comes of age, but he could get a cheap flat and no questions asked in a lot of places now he's seventeen."

"I think it unlikely that he would leave Black Manor at this stage," Dumbledore said mildly.  "But it is a possibility we may have to contend with.  And even if he stays and returns to school, there are other concerns.  Ron – suppose all goes as we hope and Voldemort is removed by Harry.  What do you suppose will happen then?"

"Well … we'll all go back to our normal lives," Ron said uncertainly.

"So we fervently hope.  But what of Harry in particular?"

"He'll get a job and … I don't know, just live, like the rest of us," Ron replied, not understanding.

"Will he?" Sirius asked grimly.

That gave Ron a pause, and for the first time he remembered Harry telling him once that he thought it would be nearly impossible to get a job because no one would hire him.  Fudge and the _Daily Prophet_ had done too good a smear job.

"Harry has an image problem," Arthur Weasley said.  "One that isn't helped by his own attitude.  People see him as an aberration in his family, an hysterical, dangerous youth, a typical Slytherin to whom weird and inexplicable things keep happening.  He makes them nervous.  And that means they won't be lining up to hire him when he leaves school."

"Many of them don't want him to leave school," Sirius added.  "There's a small but hardcore group who think he's a risk that should be removed.  Ironically, if he manages to get rid of Voldemort it'll just make them worse."

"Removed how?" Ron demanded, alarmed.

"I believe you will be happier not knowing," Dumbledore said soberly.  "That is immaterial in any case.  Our point here, Ron, is that it is of great importance that Harry be rehabilitated into our society.  I do not think it inappropriate to say that among other things we are in the process of _socialising_ him as a wizard.  Until recently he resisted our efforts, but since Easter he has proved more tractable.  And I believe that we have you to thank for that."

"Socialising?" Ron said, now bewildered.

"You must have noticed that Harry's always been at odds with everything and everyone," Sirius said.  "Until recently, he was at odds all the time with Remus and me.  Then after that spat you had with young Malfoy, all that changed.  He's coming out of his shell and he's more amenable to being a wizard.  And we owe _you_ for that."

Ron flushed, but he didn't know what to say.

"All the same, it's a slow process," Remus said, taking up the thread of the argument, "and we can't be complacent about it.  Harry's a complex character – well, we all are – and he changes his mind with his moods sometimes.  And with the best will in the world, an adult can't be a teenager again, not in the way that you and Harry are teenagers now.  Every generation is different.  So it's very hard for us to reach out and understand him, whereas for you – well, I don't suppose you find him easy to deal with either, Ron, but you're in a better position to understand him than we are."

"So we are asking two things of you," Professor Dumbledore said.  "The first is to do your best – unobtrusively of course – to encourage Harry to return to school with you in September.  I suspect this will not prove difficult.  The second is more difficult to quantify as a task, but I would ask that you lend your assistance in encouraging Harry to assimilate with our society where you can."

"Continue to assist, we should say," Sirius added.

Ron glanced at Harry, who slept on obliviously at Remus's side.  The responsibility seemed enormous to him – helping the other boy to fit into a world that he had been born into but not raised in and which showed every indication of not wanting him there.

"We're really only asking you to continue being his friend, Ron," Remus said gently.  "He has so few friends and none of them are close like you."

"I'd do that anyway," Ron said, a little indignantly.  "You didn't have to ask."

"I would not ask you to do anything connected with Harry without first alerting you to the risks," Dumbledore said.  "And it is important that you _should_ understand them."

"I've already told Harry before, it's worth the risk – "

"Have you really considered what they are?" his father interrupted him.  "Why do you think your mother is so opposed to you younger ones being involved in this?"

"I will be blunt," Dumbledore said gravely.  "Lord Voldemort wants Harry dead.  Anyone who stands between him and his goal risks death.  Should you doubt me on this, consider Harry's family history.  Voldemort's followers murdered Elvira Potter, Harry's grandmother, in a bid to intimidate his grandfather.

"Henry Potter later acknowledged his half-blood grandson as his son's heir and within a matter of weeks he himself died prematurely.  And little more than a year later, having failed to threaten James Potter into handing over his son, Lord Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow on the intelligence of Peter Pettigrew and killed Harry's parents before attempting to kill Harry himself for the first time.  He has made several attempts since, as you already know."

"He's made it quite clear what awaits Remus and I if he ever gets his hands on us," Sirius said.  "But we knew the risks when we became Harry's godparents.  Besides, it's no more than any member of the Order risks just by being Voldemort's enemy.  But you're not a member of the Order, Ron, you're something quite different.  And by standing up as Harry's friend, especially as a pureblood, you'll make a target of yourself."

There was a pause, during which everyone looked at Ron and Ron tried to avoid looking at them.

"It seems like a little thing, mate," Bill said eventually.  "But actually we're asking you to do something incredibly dangerous.  I'll tell you straight – I don't like it.  I know it seems to you like Mum's mollycoddling you, but she's not really.  She's frightened, and I don't blame her for that.  But there's no one else we can ask to do it.  Sirius and Remus do as much as they can, but you know yourself that Harry's dead difficult and contrary when he wants to be – that's not a judgement on him, it's just an observation, because I know he has his reasons for being the way he is – and the only other person who seems to have got through to him is you."

"You're not alone in this," Remus put in.  "Harry does respond very strongly to Sirius in a parental role, although often in ways that seem directly contrary to each other – "

"I seem to remember it being you who put him in his place when he got uppity the other day," Sirius observed.

"My ability to dominate stroppy teenagers is directly related to the phases of the moon, unfortunately," Remus replied.  "The rest of the time I have to rely on sweet reason and any respect Harry might have conceived for me when I was his teacher."

"Not inconsiderable tools," Dumbledore pointed out gently.  "And I suspect Arthur will tell you that any parent relies upon years of accumulated love and respect to carry them through the more tempestuous period of adolescence."

"True!" Arthur said wryly.  "Although any teenager has varying reactions to parents, depending on the current hormonal surge."

Ron frowned at this.  He didn't think he was hormonal _or_ unreasonable.

"Father Marius is mounting an assault on Harry's defences too," Sirius remarked, "and being a lot more successful than any of us expected."

"I don't reckon that's because Harry's religious," Ron said at once, with a little snort.  "Father Marius is just an all right bloke."

This earned him grins all round, although he wasn't sure why.

"Well, whatever the reason, it's good that Harry likes him." his father said.

"But at the end of the day, it's going to be you doing the bulk of the work," Bill said.  "Harry's not keen on adults, that's obvious, or on anyone who tries to boss him around for that matter.  I got chapter and verse on how rude he is from Hermione yesterday."

"You're kidding me, right?" Ron said wryly.  "He was being _nice_ to her yesterday."

Sirius laughed.

"And yet he has excellent manners when he chooses," Remus said with a sigh.

"The point is, Ron, you're going to be dealing with it head-on," Bill continued.  "Do you think you can handle that?  I know Remus just said that we're asking you to be his friend, but I think it's trickier than that."

"Indeed," Dumbledore put in.  "Harry is, after all, a Slytherin and the internal politics of Slytherin House will always make it a touchy business for one of its sons to pursue a friendship of any kind with a Gryffindor.  Moreover, depending upon the manoeuvring of various members of the House when school resumes in September – the social structure, the disposition of prefects, and the make-up of the Quidditch team – it may become necessary for Harry to present one face to you in public, Ron, and another in private.  Can you cope with that?  It may even become necessary, for your own comfort and – unfortunately – your safety, for you to adopt a similar approach towards Harry.  Your fellow Gryffindors _are_ noted for their occasional tendency to act first and consider consequences later.  You will need to be alert to that, as much as to the possible retaliation of the Slytherins."

Ron thought about it.  So far, the incident with Malfoy was the only serious consequence of their friendship.  That had been bad enough, he knew.  But there had been a feeling throughout the remainder of the year that the real trouble was only on hold, waiting for a suitable moment to erupt; there was a whole new school year about to start shortly, and Ron wasn't stupid enough to assume that things could continue the way they had without something happening.  It wouldn't hurt for him and Harry to start thinking about how to deal with that.

And it would inevitably mean a lot of pressure.  Ron didn't need Hermione to tell him that looking after Harry, avoiding trouble with both the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, managing the Gryffindor Quidditch team, _and_ studying for his NEWTs was probably a short route to insanity.

But then he looked at Harry, sprawled bonelessly against Remus's shoulder, and remembered that for him there was even worse pressure – of trying to do a similar set of things while at the same time coping with the knowledge that there was a power-mad master-wizard out there plotting to kill him. 

"You won't be alone with this, Ron," his father said.  "I don't like it any more than Bill does, but I do see that you're probably the best person for the job, and having accepted that I would never leave you to cope with it alone.  None of us would.  If it becomes too much for you, if you need help or advice or just someone to talk to, I'll always be here for you."

"And me," Bill added.

"And Remus and me, for that matter," Sirius said. 

"The Order will be behind you," Dumbledore said firmly.  "And that is another matter we should mention.  Given what we ask of you, Ron, I would ordinarily invite you to become a full member of the Order of the Phoenix.  But the situation for you is somewhat different to the rest of us.  For one thing you are underage to join us, for I insist on our members having finished their education.  For another …."  He paused, stroking his beard thoughtfully.  "For another, given your unique relationship with Harry, I am reluctant to put you in a position of even greater stress.  You will have quite enough to deal with, without being troubled by Order business."

"And, it has to be said, there's absolutely no excuse for making you privy to information that will only make you an even more tempting target than you are already," Remus remarked grimly.

"Agreed," Mr. Weasley said, and Bill nodded.

"So, I would say to you – consider yourself a member of the Order," Dumbledore concluded, "for in the role you take on you cannot possibly be considered anything else.  But you hold a privileged status among us, for you engage in a task that no one else can undertake and in so doing the Order owes you a duty of care on a par with the duty it owes to Harry."

"I'd prefer it if his name wasn't bandied around the Order at large, Albus," Ron's father put in quickly.

"Agreed."  Dumbledore's tone was thoughtful.  "Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Snape will be apprised of this discussion, however, and I believe it would be prudent if other selected members – Charlie Weasley, of course, and the Aurors Miss Tonks, Kingsley and Alastor Moody – are put on notice."

"Sir – what about Hermione?" Ron asked nervously.

"Miss Granger already performs a useful function in continuing with her Defence Association," Dumbledore said.  "And given her relationship with Harry – or lack of it – I believe it will be more helpful if she is not included in this endeavour.  If she can overcome the differences between them, then that is all to the good, but she too is underage and I cannot condone the inclusion of more junior members in the Order."

"Especially as including Hermione will inevitably lead to Ginny insisting on being involved," Mr. Weasley added, "and it's bad enough that we have to include Ron."

"It probably wouldn't just be Ginny anyway," Ron observed.  "Neville's always asking about stuff, and Luna too.  It's just – "  He pinked a little.  "I don't know how good I'll be at keeping this from Hermione.  I reckon I can keep it from everyone else, but Hermione knows me better.  Ginny too, I suppose."

"If Miss Granger or your sister become too pressing, you may refer them to me," Professor Dumbledore said calmly.  "Alternatively, speak directly to Professor McGonagall."

"Don't try to deal with them yourself," Sirius said shrewdly.  "Girls are usually a lot cannier than lads in situations like that and you're guaranteed to come off the worst."  He grinned at Ron.  "I found that out the hard way.  Better to say nothing and let Professor McGonagall sort them out."

"Okay."  Ron wasn't sure if that would be enough, but he supposed the only way to find out was to try.

"It shouldn't be that big a problem," Bill said, seeing his expression.  "After all, on the face of it what you're doing won't be any different to what you do now.  You're just _aware_ that you're doing it and know that you have people to turn to if you need help.  So there's no reason for anyone to know about this conversation."

"Least of all Harry," Remus said, and Ron suddenly realised what would probably be the most difficult part of the task of all.

 

xXx

 

Harry was more than a little disconcerted to awake and find himself lying next to Remus on the bed.  He had a vague memory of eating dinner and Professor Dumbledore arriving … then nothing but a wisp of an intriguing dream that fled as soon as he dragged his eyes open.

Remus was peering down at him, grinning.

"Have a nice nap?" he asked.

Harry frowned and turned onto his back, blinking.  The room seemed empty, he thought, but he wasn't sure for his glasses had been removed.

"What?" he asked thickly.

"You nodded off in the middle of the conversation," Remus said helpfully.  He helped Harry to sit up and passed him his glasses.

Harry flushed with embarrassment.  "I wasn't _that_ tired!"

"You must have over-exerted yourself somehow this afternoon," Remus added slyly, making Harry swat at him half-heartedly.

"Shurrup, Remus!"  Then he looked around, bewildered.  "How did I get here?"

"Sirius put you there.  At least you don't snore, hog the blankets or shed black fur."

"Did I miss anything?  Where are the others?"  Harry was annoyed at himself – for crying out loud, only toddlers fell asleep in the middle of things and had to be put to bed by the grown-ups.

"Don't worry, you didn't miss anything important!  The others went downstairs a while ago and left us to snooze."

"Damn," he muttered.  "I was supposed to talk to Professor Dumbledore."

"I don't think he's gone," Remus said.  "They went down to the sitting room, since you were still asleep and I was drooping a bit."

"Oh."  How embarrassing.  "What time is it?"

"About eight-thirty.  Time for another cup of tea, I hope."

Harry wasn't sure if this was a hint, but he decided to take it as one and climbed slowly off the bed.  He felt sticky and crumpled and his mouth was coated with an unpleasant fuzz; all good reasons for never having an impromptu nap during the day.  Besides, there were so many things he could have been doing with the wasted time, especially with Ron there.

But they were all in the sitting room when he went downstairs, so Harry diverted to the kitchen, set the kettle to boil and put the tea things out.  When he walked into the sitting room, they were talking animatedly; in particular he was surprised to see Ron having what looked like a very intense conversation with Sirius.  Everyone looked up when he walked in and smiled.

Harry flushed.  "Sorry," he muttered.  "I reckon I'm getting old."

"Speaking as one who _is_ old," Dumbledore remarked, his eyes twinkling, "I find that one seems to need _less_ , not more sleep.  Although an afternoon nap can be very beneficial to the mental processes."

Not sure what to say to this, Harry said, "I'm making tea.  Remus wanted a cup."

"That's kind, Harry," Arthur Weasley said, standing up, "but really we were about to be off anyway.  It's getting late."

Bill agreed with this at once, and when Harry looked at Ron his friend also wryly agreed that he should go.

"I'll be back tomorrow, mate," he said, squeezing Harry's shoulder apologetically.  "Ballroom, remember?  Wouldn't miss that for the world!"

So Harry had to watch them all climbing into the Floo again, wishing that Ron could stay for just one night.  Then Sirius took Remus a cup of tea, and Harry was left alone with Professor Dumbledore.

"So," the headmaster said, as four lumps of sugar jumped from the bowl into his cup and the spoon began to stir it.  "Sirius and Remus tell me that you are having problems with your magic."

It seemed very trivial now that Dumbledore was sitting in front of him, but Harry related his difficulties in control and measuring his own magical power and even, very reluctantly, mentioned the incident at his birthday party.  Throughout his explanation, the headmaster studied his own cup thoughtfully and it was hard to tell what, if anything, he made of this.  But when Harry fell silent, he looked up and his blue eyes were as calm and kindly as ever.

"There is a very simple explanation for what is happening to you, Harry," Dumbledore said, and there was a directness in the way he spoke that Harry had become used to hearing from him ever since Dumbledore had told him about the prophecy at the end of his fifth year at school.  "I have been expecting you to tell me of difficulties like these for some time now, although, as with so many of the things that happen to you, I also half-hoped you never would.  It is rarely pleasant to discover that one's suspicions have been confirmed."

"You knew about this?" Harry asked.  That didn't come as a surprise anymore.

"Suspected," Dumbledore corrected him.  "My biggest concern, however, has not been that it would prove true but that the information would become known in other quarters ….  Tell me, have you told anyone other than Sirius and Remus about this?"

"Only Ron, sir.  We were talking today …." 

Dumbledore was nodding.  "Good.  I would advise you not to speak to anyone else, though."

"I shan't."  Harry made a slight face.  "He thought it was a bit odd, so who knows what other people would make of it."

Dumbledore looked at him a little sharply at this.  After a moment, he said, "Some individuals might consider it confirmation of their greatest fears, Harry.  I assume that by now you will have made the connection to Lord Voldemort in this matter for yourself."

Actually, Harry hadn't automatically assumed Voldemort was behind his problems, but as soon as Dumbledore said it he realised that it made perfect sense.  Like so many of his other problems in life.

"It's something he's doing?"

"In a manner of speaking.  Harry, when you first discovered you were a Parselmouth, do you recall that I told you the ability came from Lord Voldemort?"

"Perhaps you may have wondered what other gifts and talents you acquired from him at the same time?" Dumbledore prompted.

"I suppose.  But what …."  Harry stopped.  An ominous thought had just intruded into his mind.  "What does that have to do with me controlling my magic?"

"You say that sometimes you overflow with magical energy, while at other times you have to put considerable effort into performing spells.  And then again, for the majority of the time your magic maintains a status quo between the two situations.  Correct?"

"Yes …."

Dumbledore nodded, and put his teacup on the table before sitting back in his chair. 

"Harry, when you were born your name was automatically listed on the register that makes note of children born with magic, be they pureblooded, half-blooded or Muggleborn.  Consequently, your name also appeared, provisionally, on the list of future pupils to be offered a place of education at Hogwarts.  You would have appeared on that list had you but the merest spark of magic, but in point of fact you were performing small acts of magic – levitating toys and such – from the moment you could sit up and observe the world around you.  This was a little unusual; the first signs of magic in most children occur at around three or four years old, so it was a cause for celebration in your parents and their friends.

"Then your parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort and you survived the curse that should have killed you too.  A link was forged between the two of you, in spite of Voldemort's incapacitation, and things took an unusual turn."

Dumbledore rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers in his familiar posture of deep concentration.

"It is nothing unusual for a magical child to perform random acts of magic, Harry, either through childish want or temper, or because of momentary fears.  The scale and number of the incidents you performed during the ten years that followed your parents' deaths _was_ unusual, though.  Months at a time would pass when nothing occurred – then a whole string of events of astonishing power and control would be reported by those monitoring your home.  Small, accidental magics are normal with magical children, but in your case there were instances of Apparition, of Animation.  Witches and wizards merely passing your house would report that concealment spells and Disillusionment Charms would simply cease to work, rendering them unintentionally visible to you and the Muggles around you.  Your Muggle teachers and classmates would fall prey to small explosions, objects inexplicably shrinking or swelling, random changes in their hair colour and so on.  Many of these were magics that should have been far beyond a boy of significantly less than twelve years old, let alone to a wizard without a wand, yet you performed them faultlessly and unthinkingly, with no apparent detriment to yourself.  And yet there was no consistency to it.

"Then you came to Hogwarts.  In some things you excelled at once, whilst in others you would struggle intermittently.  You learned and performed the Patronus Charm with astonishing ease for one so young, and yet the Summoning Charm seemed to elude you until the very last moment of desperation.  You performed the Cruciatus Curse with no prior instruction other than overhearing others – oh yes, I know about your use of it at the Ministry of Magic last year! – and while it was not fully effective, it was nevertheless more effective than Bellatrix Lestrange was willing to admit to you.  Likewise you were able to perform Shield Charms, Stinging, Blasting and Slicing Hexes, all magics that require considerable power to use effectively, with little or no effort.  Professor Flitwick informs me that your natural gift with Animation could easily lead you to attain the title of Master Animator should you continue your studies to an advanced level.  And yet Transfiguration, a subject you should have mastered as easily as your father and mother with your natural strength and abilities, still continues to trouble you.  Sirius has told me how you struggle to grasp the basics of Animagery."

Dumbledore raised his eyes to look penetratingly at Harry for a moment.

"So, you were born a child of great promise.  But something had clearly happened to you during the encounter with Lord Voldemort which subtly affected your magical progress, and when it became clear to me – and to others who watched your progress closely – that a channel had been opened between you and Voldemort through which poured not only thoughts and feelings, but also magical gifts such as Parseltongue, speculation about the precise nature of your magic could not be avoided."

The professor suddenly sighed and sat back in his chair.

"And some, I regret to say, have taken that speculation to an extreme."

Harry struggled with this information.  If asked, he could not have begun to say how exactly he felt about it – his feelings were too jumbled and frightened.  But he had to know; he _always_ had to know.

"Does – does my magic come from Voldemort, then?" he asked unsteadily.  "This channel between us – does that mean that when I do magic, all my power comes from him?  Is that why I sometimes can't call it at all?"

"No," Dumbledore said at once, with absolute certainty.  He leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Harry's intensely.  "I want you to clearly understand that, Harry, because there are certain individuals – primarily the Death Eaters, but also people within the Order and at the Ministry – who would certainly like you to believe that without the connection to Voldemort you would be little more than a squib.  That is untrue.  Have you not already noticed that, for the majority of the time, you have a level flow of magic that is neither too much nor too little?  This is your own magic, the magic you were born with and which would have brought you to Hogwarts even had Voldemort never cast the Killing Curse at you."

"Then why – "

"I will explain.  I believe that when the channel between the two of you opened, it linked your respective magics together, so that sometimes when you call your magic and Lord Voldemort's guard is down, you draw not only upon your own power but his as well.  This was particularly noticeable during your childhood when he was disembodied and had little or no control over himself.  Likewise, there are times now when _your_ guard is down and he pulls upon your magic.  There are also times when I believe he wilfully makes the effort to prevent you using magic – perhaps to amuse himself and frighten you, but also perhaps because he may not entirely realise what he's doing.  But for much of the time, both of your guards will be up and the magic at your beck and call is entirely your own, no more and no less."

Harry had to digest that for a little while, but it made sense.  Something still bothered him though.

"So why are you worried other people will realise what's happening?" he asked.

Dumbledore sighed again, very softly.  "I worry, Harry, because of their possible reactions.  Certain individuals in the Order are concerned about what will happen if you should destroy Lord Voldemort or, worse, if he destroys you.  Your magic is connected.  Will the connection be severed in such an event, or will the survivor gain _all_ of the magic available you both?  You were never destined to be an average student, you know – it was clear from your early promise that you would be a remarkable wizard when you reached adulthood.  All that extra power residing in Voldemort's hands is a terrible thought, you must admit."

Harry was very good at picking up on the unspoken parts of conversations like this.

"And some of them are just as scared of what I'd do with Voldemort's power, right?"  He snorted at the familiar sense of bitterness and injustice.  "I'm that unpredictable, hysterical Slytherin.  Who knows – I could decide to become a Dark wizard myself."

"They are a very small group, Harry," Dumbledore said soberly.  "But, yes – unfortunately I believe that is what they fear."

"Nothing new there then," Harry said shortly.

"There is something more," Dumbledore said, after a short pause.  Harry looked up.  "At Easter, when you survived the attack in Diagon Alley, afterwards you told Sirius that you felt there was something Lord Voldemort wanted from you.  Do you remember?"

"Yes," Harry said after a moment.  "Do you think it's connected, sir?"

"I believe it to be very much connected.  I believe, Harry, that Lord Voldemort has recognised the potential of the link between you and, like the others, believes it possible that killing you may transfer your power to him.  And given his extensive knowledge of Dark magic, it is even possible that he may have hit upon a means to ensure that the transfer occurs, rather than relying upon chance."

There was a long silence, before Harry said, "So I guess he's not just going to try to kill me anymore.  He's going to want to do it in a particular way."

"I believe so, yes."

"So instead he's going to try to kidnap me or something – it won't just be a random hit.  That's why everyone was so worried about my Apparition test."

"Yes," Dumbledore said simply.

"Which means that I can't go anywhere without a bodyguard and everyone having fits about it.  I'm pretty much a prisoner here or at Hogwarts.  And what about if I _do_ manage to off him?  I'm going to be a social outcast, right?"  Harry dragged his eyes away from Dumbledore's and stared out of the long windows for a moment, fighting impotent rage and despair.  "I guess that's nothing new either," he muttered.  "I don't know why I'm even bothered by it anymore."

"I think we will worry about your future in wizarding society when you have succeeded in removing Lord Voldemort," Dumbledore suggested quietly.  "The probable reaction of the public can only be unhelpful speculation to you at this point."

Harry managed a small smile at this, although it was very forced. 

"Well, at least you're saying _when_ and not _if_ , sir."

 

xXx

 

The following morning Bill and Ron arrived just after breakfast to help with the ballroom.

"I shouldn't think there'll be much going on with it," Sirius observed as they all trooped through the now-familiar passage at the back of the pantry and crossed the courtyard.  "Like I said yesterday, there are just a few bits of furniture and some chandeliers.  The most excitement we're likely to get is from the portraits."

"There was one in the study yesterday," Harry said, "and she just introduced herself and walked off."

"That's Clothilde," Sirius replied off-handedly.  "She was one of Cousin Susanna's aunts.  Married three times, the last time to a Black cousin some fifteen years her junior.  Nasty piece of work."

"Really?" Ron said, surprised.  "She was okay with us.  Well … before she walked off, of course."

"She was a Necromancer, like my mother," Sirius said.  "One of her own creations ended up strangling her.  My father told Regulus and me that story as an object lesson."

"That sounds unusually sensible of your father," Remus remarked.

"It was an object lesson in doing a job properly," Sirius replied dryly.  "As in "don't allow your work to get the upper hand of you".  He didn't have a problem with the necromancy side of things."

The barred windows of the 'cloisters' and the heavily barred door all looked very bleak in the early morning light of the denuded courtyard.

"I can tell from here that there's an extension of the family wards over it all," Bill remarked, surveying the door without touching it.  "Makes sense.  Sirius, you'll need to release the wards first, then we can get a better idea of how everything's fixed."

"What would have happened if Ron and I tried to open this yesterday?" Harry asked curiously as Sirius set to work.

Bill glanced at him and grinned.  "This is a secondary defence section of the household protections – meant to catch an intruder who somehow got past the first wards on the outside of the building.  I should think it would have knocked you out and held you immobile until someone came to let you out."

"This should be okay now," Sirius said, sticking his wand in the back pocket of his jeans.  "Give me a hand with these bars?"

It took an effort, but once the bars were removed and the lock magicked undone the door swung open reasonably smoothly.  They all peered through the doorway and Sirius took a few cautious steps inside. 

"Seems okay, but let's get the shutters open and let some light in on the passage," he said. 

That took a while.  Most of the shutters were not only magicked shut, but also had old and rusted locks on the outside that nothing short of brute force would remove.  They were made of wood from which the paint had flaked away and were consequently warped out of shape from repeated rainwater soakings, and there was the remains of vegetation wrapped tightly around them and curled through the smallest gaps in the boards.  Several of the shutters had to be removed piece by piece, and it took the better part of two hours to remove them all. 

But with the shutters gone, the cloisters were revealed to be a long passage with arched windows facing out onto the courtyard.  All the windows opened outwards and folded back on themselves to make an airy space and it was easy to see why  the word 'cloisters' had been coined for it.  It had an elaborate and beautiful mosaic floor comprising circular decals at intervals containing scenes from traditional Greek and Roman mythology, and the whole was bound together with Celtic-style knotwork.  The walls were tiled in plain black marble to perhaps a third of the way up, while the rest was painted white and finished with abstract curled mouldings across the ceiling.  More cobwebs festooned the mouldings and here and there were the wilting ends of vines that had forced their way through cracks in the windows and shutters from the courtyard.  There was some other damage from the years of neglect – black mould covering the white paint and the occasional cracked tile where a plant had managed to push its way up through the floor, but it was in better condition than anyone had really expected.

Two sets of wide double doors led from either end of the cloisters into the main building.

"That's the way into the ballroom," Sirius said, surveying all of this thoughtfully.  "Take your pick."

"It doesn't take up the full length of this wall," Remus said.  "What's on either end?"

"The library takes up the whole floor of the tower on the right - and the floor above, incidentally.  On the left there are a couple of card rooms, then you have another tower which houses a couple of reception rooms for guests who aren't worthy of further entrance into the house.  The rest is the ballroom."  Sirius frowned, trying to remember exact details.  "There's a dais for the musicians at one end and an area for refreshments at the other.  There are long windows leading out onto the terrace and lawn - those are shuttered completely, you can see that from outside.  The rest should just be open space."

"Let's go in then," Bill said, and he went to examine the pair of doors on the right.  They were made of some highly polished golden wood, much dulled in the intervening years, and had long brass handles shaped like snakes -

"Watch the handles!" Ron and Harry both said just as Bill reached out them.

Bill snatched his hands back.  "Why?"

"There was a handle like that on the study door," Harry said quickly.  "It was an animated lock."

But Sirius chuckled.  "Don't worry – that one was meant to be animated!  These should just pull open."  And he suited action to words.

Harry braced himself, but when nothing happened he craned his neck to look around Sirius and was confronted with cave-like darkness and a strong smell of dust.

"Wow!" Bill said cheerfully.  "Even bigger cobwebs!"  And he laughed at Ron's groan.  "Don't worry, mate, we'll protect you …."

Remus and Sirius stood on the threshold, peering inside.

 _"Lumos generalis!"_ Sirius said without much optimism.  Lights flickered on here and there, but clearly there was more damage in the ballroom than expected.  The few wall sconces that lit up showed why.

"At least two chandeliers are down," Remus remarked.  "Must have made a nice big crash!"

Sirius grinned.  "If you knew how often Regulus and I talked about loosening those chandeliers when we were kids!"

"Can't smell any damp," Bill said, more practically.  "That's something.  It's a bit musty, but not as bad as I was expecting after all the talk of burst pipes and water getting into some of the other rooms.  So – what do we tackle first?"

"Like we said last night," Sirius replied, "let's get the paintings down first."

"It would help if we could get some of the windows open and let some light in," Remus pointed out.  "Harry, Ron, let's – "

"Wait!" Bill said sharply.  He crouched down; there was a carpet, which was spread across hardwood floorboards that had probably once been polished to a high gloss, and it reached to within two feet of each wall, leaving a kind of walkway around the edges.  "Harry, can you feel anything?"

Harry edged around him and tried to extend his senses.  It was difficult for the room was a very big space and although he got the impression of many spells, sometimes he sensed that from the kitchen on a good day.

"Walk around the edge of the carpet for now," Bill cautioned the others, "and try to avoid touching anything without checking it out first.  There's a funny magical smell in here."

On that Harry could agree.  Something 'smelled' not quite right, in the same way that certain parts of the Slytherin dungeons at Hogwarts smelled – mostly the two abandoned dormitories at the bottom end of the residential area, which had once been used for post-graduate students who stayed on as apprentices to the professors in earlier eras.

He, Ron and Remus walked carefully around the edge of the carpet to the long windows on the other side of the room.  Long, heavy velvet curtains, rotting away with age from the rails high above, still hung at either side of the window embrasures.  The windows were all shuttered tight on the outside; they had to struggle with stiff brass catches to get the windows open, and the shutters themselves resisted their efforts strenuously.  Finally Remus went outside and walked around to the terrace, and between him working on the locks from the outside and Harry and Ron from the inside they managed to get the shutters unbarred.  One by one the windows were thrown open to the fresh air and sunlight poured in across the carpet, which was revealed to be a dark green like the curtains.

"You wouldn't dance on this, though, would you?" Harry asked, kicking the edge of it with a cautious toe.  A little puff of dust lifted from it.

"No, it's there to protect the floor," Sirius replied.  "It was rolled up and put away when there was a ball.  And sometimes this room was used for bigger, daytime functions.  The servants would bring chairs and tables from the reception rooms ….  My father held some kind of conference for European Animators one year.  Flitwick will remember, he attended it."

" _Those_ days are gone," a cold voice said. 

With the sudden intrusion of sunlight the paintings had woken up and many of the occupants were watching the five of them with varying degrees of animosity.  The speaker was an elderly man in Elizabethan dress; he wore of a doublet of black silk with green inlets and stood beside a table, with one hand resting lightly on a large astrolabe and the other holding a scroll.  His grey hair was clipped neatly about his black silk ruff and he had a neat grey goatee beard; his dark eyes, much like Sirius's own, were staring at his descendent fiercely.

"Alas, that our house should have fallen upon such times!" he said.  "Never did I think to see the day when – "

"Put a sock in it, Marcellus," Sirius interrupted him, giving the portrait an impatient look.  "Or go and tell my mother, if you really _have_ to spout off, but spare my ears, all right?  I've heard it all before and from people far more eloquent than you."

"Padfoot," Remus said warningly.  "They're just paintings – ignore them."

Marcellus Black seemed to swell with indignation, but another picture (of a Civil War-era fellow dressed incongruously in a steel breastplate and helmet and struggling with a nervous horse) had something to say first.

"You, sir, are the biggest disgrace to our line in all our history!" he roared, shaking his fist at Sirius and nearly losing his hold on the horse's reins.

"You're a fine one to talk, after backing Cromwell," Sirius retorted, but he was drowned out by a storm of shouts from the other frames down the back wall of the ballroom.

"Traitor!" 

"Gaolbird!"

"Muggle-lover!" 

"Blood-traitor!" 

"Changeling!"

"Oh blimey," Ron said, and Harry watched in consternation as the people in the paintings ran from frame to frame, shouting insults at Sirius and arguing with each other, the noise level rising higher and higher until Remus muttered an apology and left the room, his hands held over his still moon-sensitive ears.

Sirius, however, turned to Harry, Ron and Bill with hard, angry eyes.

"Come on," he said.  "Let's take them down."

It was a dusty, heavy job and made worse by the sheer volume of noise, most of which was nothing but insults.  Each picture was lifted from its hooks or nails on the wall and stacked in the pile on the floor, which muffled the noise a little although not much.  After a while Remus returned, armed with a pile of old sheets with which he and Bill wrapped each picture carefully, silencing the occupant.

"What are you doing that for?" Sirius demanded sharply.  "Let's get them out into the courtyard and burn the damn things!"

"Sirius, these are probably the only pictures of your ancestors in existence since we cleared the house at Grimmauld Place," Remus replied, with the air of a man who was readying himself for a battle.

"Precisely!" Sirius snapped.  "They're well overdue to be burned, the lot of them!"

"And if you get rid of all these pictures, how exactly do you plan to educate your son about his family when the time comes?" Remus demanded.

Bill began to look as though he wished he was somewhere else.  Especially when Sirius folded his arms over his chest and said flatly, "I haven't decided yet if I'm going to bother with a son."

He and Remus stared at each other for a long moment.  Then Remus said conversationally, "That's fine.  But if that's the case there's no point in taking these pictures down, since I'm fairly sure either Severus or young Draco would be quite happy to have them here.  Not having the aversion to their family history that you do."

"Snivellus and the Malfoy spawn will take possession of this house over my dead body!"

"Don't be an ass, Sirius!  You don't get to have it both ways – either you father an heir yourself or the Wizengamot will choose one for you, and those choices are extremely limited.  So make your bloody mind up!  But either way, you have _no right_ to throw out these pictures, however little you like them.  You are not their owner, do you understand me?  As the heir to the House of Black, you are their _custodian_ – you hold them in trust for your descendents, whoever that may be, and as such you can't chuck them on the bonfire like the broken furniture and rotting carpets.  You can't dispose of any of the family heirlooms willy-nilly, any more than Mo MacDuff and old Pettifer can dispose of Harry's."

"If you think I'm going to put up with this parcel of old freaks screaming at me and spying on us all the time – " Sirius began furiously, but Remus was shaking his head.

"Wrap them up and put them into storage, you idiot!  That's all I was planning to do anyway.  Maybe later, when we've tackled the upper storeys, we can find a nice back corridor or even one of those hidden rooms you were going on about, and hang them all up together there, but in the meantime – "

" _No!_   I don't want _any_ of them on the walls here!  Dammit, Moony, can't you see?  _I am not my bloody ancestors!_   If I have to carry on being the head of the House of Black, if I have to bring some poor brat into the world and raise him as my heir, I'm going to do away with everything that they claimed to stand for and remake the house from the floor up, if I die in the attempt!  No kid of mine will ever have to look at the walls of this house and know that the filthy _shits_ hanging there are his family."

"Padfoot, if you deny the past you'll condemn your descendents to making the same mistakes all over again - "

"Look," Bill said, in the tone of someone going against his personal inclinations to be the voice of reason, "the pictures _have_ to come down if the Order is going to use this room.  We can just stack them somewhere – maybe in the storeroom Ron and Harry cleared out – until you've discussed it.  But right now, the afternoon is running on and we should get on with it."

For a moment the argument seemed to hang in the balance; then Sirius half-turned away, rubbing his eyes with one hand and waving the other in a kind of indeterminate surrender.

"Whatever," he said ungraciously.  "Stick 'em in a corner somewhere, I don't care.  They can be burned as easily later as now."

"Fine," Remus said briskly.  "The storeroom's an excellent idea – "

 _"You dare not store me like lumber, you foul cur!"_ one of the portraits roared.

"It's that or be burned right now," Sirius said sharply, recovering.  "I don't care which, personally."

The portraits shut up.

Much relieved by this apparent consensus, Bill gestured to Harry and Ron to pass him the next picture.

Removing and storing the portraits took quite some time.  It was mid-afternoon by the time they returned to the ballroom to look at what needed doing next.  Sirius subjected the spindly little chairs and tables standing against the wall to severe scrutiny and decided they were all in a reasonable condition, only needing reupholstering.  So they too were stored ("Not much use to us," he remarked, "but there are shops in Diagon Alley that'll buy them for refurbishing and sell them on").  The chandeliers were another matter.

"Let's leave the downed ones for now," Bill suggested, eyeing the carpet mistrustfully.  "Can we get at the others without having to cross this?  How are they suspended?"

That was a very good question.

"It can't be too complicated," Remus said.  "They're too big and unwieldy for anyone, even House-elves, to want to fiddle with them unnecessarily."

"Hopefully they're just hooked up," Sirius replied.  He squinted at the fallen chandelier unsuccessfully.  "I can't see any hooks on that one though.  It's just a big mess of brilliants – the fastening could be anywhere.  Let's try levitating one of the others."

But even the combined efforts of the four of them failed to lift any of the chandeliers that were still in place. 

"This is no good," Bill sighed finally.  "We're going to have to risk crossing this damned carpet – do you have a stepladder?  We'll never reach the things otherwise."

Harry grabbed Ron's arm and they went to get the biggest of three stepladders stored in the old coach-house.  When they returned, Sirius and Bill were just preparing to set out across the carpet to move the fallen chandeliers.

"Do you reckon it's a man-eater like the one that grabbed Tonks in the hall?" Harry asked interestedly.

"Better hope not.  If it is, we may never see Sirius or Bill again and then we'd be in a pickle," Remus replied.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Bill said as he crouched at the edge of the carpet, trying to gauge what was waiting for them.  "There's _definitely_ something not right with this thing," he said, standing up and dusting his hands on the seat of his jeans.  "I just can't work out what.  It can't be particularly aggressive though, or I reckon Harry would know – you seem to have a good nose for a hex, kid."

"Damned if I can work out what it is, either," Sirius admitted.  "The whole thing smells of my mother's magic though, which shouldn't reassure you.  Oh well – I'll go first and if something grabs me, you're the best man to get me out of it.  Here goes - "

He stepped onto the carpet.

Nothing happened.

"Okay …." he said warily, and he began to take slow, careful steps towards the first chandelier.  Still nothing happened, other than a small cloud of dust rising under this feet.  When he reached the mass of crystal brilliants, he waved his wand and levitated them from the floor with an effort.  "Grab this lot, someone – "

There was a sound a bit like someone dropping a blanket from a great height, and Sirius cursed and dropped the chandelier with a tremendous crash. 

"Shit!  Bill, did you feel that?  I've triggered something - any idea what it could be?"

"Hold still."  Bill walked across the faded carpet very cautiously and made a few passes with his wand.  "Well, it's not fatal or even particularly dangerous."

"Can I move?"  Sirius was scratching his arm.  "There's something making my hair stand on end."

"It's not that, mate.  You triggered an Infestation Hex."  Now it was Bill's turn to swear - he was trying to examine the spell attached to the chandelier and scratch the back of his neck at the same time.  "God, it was an evil little mind that came up with this one!  There's an acceleration clause, to make it effective immediately, and something to make it spread quickly as well."

"What the devil is it?" Remus demanded.  They were all looking a little itchy now.  "Good Lord, it's not fleas, is it?  It's bad enough having to delouse occasionally after a full moon …."

"No, it's something worse," Bill said with a disgusted grimace.  "I'm not sure, but I think it's scabies.  We need to get someone like Madam Pomfrey here to make sure, but if it is - "

"We'll have to fumigate the entire bloody house," Remus finished for him, dismayed.  "There's no way we can clean enough to clear the infestation from a place this size, if it's spreading.  Oh, bloody _hell!_   Everyone stay here - I'll put in a firecall to Dumbledore."

Fifteen minutes later Madam Pomfrey arrived, carrying something that looked like a garden flick-spray which she proceeded to douse them all with. 

"This isn't a treatment," she warned them briskly, "but hopefully it will stop the infestation from spreading to anyone else.  I've a lotion here that you all need to cover yourselves with - all over, mind, from the back of your neck to the soles of your feet.  Burn the clothes you're wearing.  Leave the lotion on for four hours, then take a hot bath.  And you'll have to close this house up overnight while you fumigate.  Mr. Filch is sending a crate of fumigation cones."

"Great," Sirius said, in a stressed tone.  "And where do we go while the house is being fumigated?"

There was a pause.

"More to the point, where do we go that has enough room for all of us to bathe?" Bill pointed out.  "It'll push things a bit at The Burrow."

"Hogwarts?" Sirius suggested, looking at Madam Pomfrey hopefully, but she shook her head.

"I said that potion _should_ work, but you shouldn't go anywhere where there are other people, just in case you're still infectious.  Professor Dumbledore is hosting a small gathering of foreign teachers this week."

"I _knew_ we should have fixed the bath-house," Harry said, scratching miserably.

"We could, perhaps, go to The Rose House for the night," Remus suggested hesitantly.  "And it's even possible … there's that big pool in Elvira's solar and it was empty when we last went over there.  Perhaps the House-elves would be able to fill it with enough hot water for us all to get a decent bath, rather than having them run around dealing with several separate bathtubs."

"What about the security?" Bill asked, concerned.  "You know how Dumbledore feels about Harry staying overnight anywhere but here or Hogwarts, or with his relatives."

Harry had a brief, horrible vision of being packed off to the Dursleys for the night.

"We'll have to manage," Sirius replied.  "The Potter family wards should be strong enough and we can set up watches through the night.  Remus, when you've lotioned up would you go over there and speak to the House-elves?  We'll get started on the fumigation while you're gone."

"Is that your house?" Ron asked Harry, as they helped Sirius and Bill set up fumigation cones.  They were doing the parts of the house that had already been 'opened up', while Sirius and Bill took cones to the parts that were still technically out of bounds.

"Yeah," Harry replied shortly.  He hadn't said much since Madam Pomfrey left.

"Are you okay, mate?"

"I itch."

"Yeah, I know.  Still, it could be worse."

Ron seemed to be taking the Infestation Hex better than the others.  Bill and Remus were resigned, if uncomfortable, but Sirius and Harry were clearly miserable.  By the time they'd set all the cones smoking and Apparated over to Harry's ancestral home, Remus was beginning to worry.

The House-elves were thrilled at the idea of having their young master and his friends staying in the house, even if only for one night.  They had managed to set up the pool in the ladies' solar as a tolerable communal bathtub, complete with piles of fluffy, warmed towels and scented soaps, had sorted out some old but serviceable robes for the group to wear when their own were burned, and by the smell of things a nice dinner was being prepared too.

"I could get used to this!" Bill joked as he climbed into the steaming pool.

"Are you all right?" Remus asked Sirius discreetly.  His partner was scrubbing himself with a tight-lipped vigour and his skin was a livid red.

"This is just typical of my hag of a mother," Sirius hissed back at him furiously.  "This is the kind of thing she used to set on me when I was a boy.  She knew I'd just take a beating, so she'd send some hideous jinx after me, something foul and disgusting that made my skin crawl and all the other kids refuse to come near me.  I _hate_ this."

"Easy, Padfoot …."  Remus had to reach out and still his hands.  "This wasn't aimed especially at you, you know."

"It wouldn't surprise me if it was!"

"She couldn't know you'd come back to the house, Sirius, as far as she knew you were in Azkaban for the rest of your life - "

"She was always one for hedging her bets."

Remus firmly took the loofah from him and tossed it into the basket of soaps at the side of the pool.  "Here, turn around and I'll sponge your back.  Just don't keep tearing at your skin like that."

Harry was no better.  He was scrubbing at himself frantically, his face twisted up in disgust, and Ron was watching in concern.

"It'll be all right," the redhead said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.  "This isn't the first time I've done this – when we were little, Ginny stayed overnight with some friends and caught some kind of rash.  We all caught it, except Bill and Charlie, and Mum went nearly nuts."  He chuckled, momentarily reliving his mother's wrath.  "Felt like I'd never be clean again and God, it looked _disgusting,_ but after a week or so …."  He shrugged.

"When I was little, Dudley caught head lice," Harry said in a small, tight voice.  "Aunt Petunia blamed me and shaved all my hair off, even though I didn't have them.  I had to go to school with no hair and Dudley told all the other kids I was infectious.  Our teacher even made me sit at a desk by myself in the corner."

Hearing the slightly hysterical note in Harry's voice made Sirius pull himself together.

"Well, nobody's making you sit in a corner this time," he said briskly.  "In fact, I'd be amazed if the House-elves haven't set your place at the head of the dinner table in your grandfather's chair."

"Madam Pomfrey's lotion'll work, Harry," Bill added soothingly.  "You probably won't even itch by the morning."  He settled back in the hot water, sinking up to his neck.  Clearly, he was enjoying the experience.  "Say, what are we doing about security tonight?"

"Moody's bringing a couple of people from the Order over later; we'll organise shifts," Remus said.  "The household wards are probably strong enough, but it pays to be cautious.  I'm wondering about rooms, though.  I hate to ask the House-elves to make up guest rooms for all of us."

Drooby, the elderly head-elf, suddenly popped out of the air beside the pool.

"Dinner is ready, Master!" he squeaked to Harry.

"Thank you very much, Drooby," Harry told him gravely, ignoring Ron's muffled chuckle.  "About bedrooms – we don't want you all to go to any bother – "

"We is preparing rooms, Master," the elf told him firmly, in a tone that clearly brooked no opposition.  His bat-like ears drooped for a moment.  "Master Harry is not allowed to be our master yet," he squeaked mournfully, "so we is putting Master Harry in Master James's room – yes?"

"That – that'll be fine," Harry said, blinking and glancing nervously at Sirius.

"Mister Black and Mister Lupin is in the Amber Suite," the elf announced, "and Mister Weasley and Mister Ronald Weasley is in the Blue guest chambers.  Does Master find this satisfactory?"

"It's brilliant, Drooby.  Please thank all the other elves.  I know it's made a lot of work for you all."

Drooby seemed to take great pleasure in this. 

"Drooby is pleased that Master is pleased."  Just before he vanished he added fiercely, "But when Master Harry comes to live with us, he shall have the old Master's chambers!"

"I've gone up in the world," Remus commented, amused, when the elderly elf was gone.  "Not only do I rate a _Mister Lupin_ now but I get to stay in the Amber Suite.  I used to share one of the Yellow guest rooms with Peter when we used to come for Christmas – do you remember, Padfoot?  I notice you rate a suite again too.  Must be because you're the head of the Black family now."

"Are all House-elves that fussy?" Ron asked curiously.

"My family's elves used to be a lot more snobbish," Sirius replied, with a slight smile.  "But they all have a finely tuned sense of status.  When I was still the heir of the Blacks, I rated a guest suite when I stayed here.  But when I was the disgraced and disowned Black brat who was hanging on the Potters' sleeves, Drooby put me very firmly in my place.  I was given a room, and it was a very comfortable room because the Potters weren't vicious like my family, but the House-elves made sure it was noticeably inferior to James's suite.  It was very important to them that James's status as the family's heir was maintained.  Well, you can see for yourself how Drooby fusses over Harry."

Harry looked uncomfortable. 

"I don't think we should upset them by being late for dinner," he muttered.

"True," Remus agreed, and they all reluctantly dragged themselves out of the pool and dried off.

The robes laid out for them were a mismatch of styles, for which another of the elves, Bolly, was deeply apologetic.

"We is having to take things out of storage, Master," he squeaked to Harry anxiously.  "The robes should fit, but some is old."

Harry, for the umpteenth time, patiently assured him that it was fine.  And of all of them he probably was the luckiest – he was much the same size as his father had been at his age, so while his robes might be twenty or more years out of date, they fitted perfectly.  Bill and Remus ended up in the robes of some long-dead Potter uncle; very elegant and comfortable, but rather startling in their Eighteenth Century design.  Sirius got a comfortable lounging robe in soft, thick wool that had belonged to Harry's great-great-grandfather, the renowned Raphael Potter.  And Ron was given an imposing blue brocade evening robe that Bolly whispered had been left at the house by Praetonius Malfoy after a Christmas party in the 1970s.

"I remember that party," Sirius remarked.  "Your grandfather threw the Malfoys out on Boxing Day after Lucius insulted your mother, Harry."

"Good," Harry said grimly.

Sirius's prediction had been on the spot; when they filed into the smaller family dining room, they found the elves had laid the table out just as though sixteen years had not passed since a Potter had sat down to dinner there.  Remus and Ron were ushered to seats on one side of the table by Dilly, and Bill to the other, while Sirius got the foot of the table and Harry was tenderly guided by Drooby to an imposing chair at its head. 

Considering that they had been taken by surprise, the House-elves managed a formidable four-course meal of fish, soup and a pork roast, with cheeses and trifle for dessert, plus coffee.  Their guests, not wanting to insult their efforts, ate heartily and with great appreciation.

"I'm glad Moody's bringing help," Bill remarked wryly at one point.  "I'm never going to stay awake after this!"

Harry privately agreed, although he would never have admitted it.  Clean, comfortable, the maddening itch beginning to subside, and with a pleasantly full stomach, he couldn't honestly say that he was looking forward to taking part in a night watch.  He wanted to curl up in a warm bed, preferably with Ron, and sleep for twelve hours.

So he couldn't feel nearly as guilty as he felt he should when Remus kindly told the two of them to take themselves off to bed.

"There are more than enough of us to sort out an efficient watch when Moody arrives with his reinforcements," he told Harry firmly.  "The pair of you can sleep with good conscience."

"Yeah – don't worry, we'll be putting you both to work tomorrow," Bill added, grinning.

"I hope the fumigation really works," Harry said, lingering uncertainly in the doorway.

"It'd better," Sirius replied rather emphatically, and the two of them shared a sudden smile.

 

xXx

 

"We'd better find where this room is that I'm supposed to be sharing with Bill," Ron remarked as he and Harry walked down the passage.  "Do you know where you're going, mate?"

"We're heading for the kitchens.  The elves will show us where to go."

So they paid a visit to the kitchens, where Harry was once again greeted with enthusiasm by the House-elves.  He spent several minutes earnestly thanking them for their efforts that evening (which sent them all into ecstasies, Ron noted, and in one case happy tears), then Dilly detached herself from the group and took it upon herself to guide them through the passages to the guest wing.

The Blue guest rooms were two rooms sharing a bathroom, each decorated with blue furnishings and some rather imposing furniture.  Dilly spent several repetitive minutes assuring herself that Ron (and more importantly, Harry) was satisfied with the arrangements, then showed them the quickest route to the family wing where Harry was spending the night.  Most of this part of the house was under covers, but James Potter's room was where he remembered it. 

The elves had clearly been in to clean since his previous visit; the shrine-like clutter of his father's youth had been tidied up and fresh linens put on the bed.  Sirius's old robe was no longer folded up on the window seat, the cushions on the leather couch had been straightened and the heap of records Harry had disturbed before had been neatly stacked up next to the old record player.

Ron stood in the doorway, looking around with interest.

"Well!" he said, when Dilly had bowed herself out of the room.  "I've got to say it, Harry mate – ain't this how the other half lives?"

"I don't suppose they thought it was anything unusual," Harry remarked.  He still wasn't sure how he felt, standing there in the middle of his father's possessions.

Ron spied the broom-rack and went straight over to it with a crow of delight. 

"Look at this!  A Comet Cloudsweeper!  And a Falcon – bloody hell, they're worth a small fortune on the vintage market now.  I wonder if they still go okay?"

"Probably.  They were well looked-after."

"He had everything of the best, didn't he?"

Harry shrugged, making a face.  "Why not?  They had the money."

Ron shot him a quick, cautious look, but decided not to comment.  He spotted a bookcase and wandered over to look.

"Got a small fortune here in old _Martin Miggs_ comics, too," he said after a moment.  "All properly bound in those leather binders they charge an arm and a leg for every Christmas.  1965 to 1978 – complete sets.  Don't tell Fred and George, they'll burgle your house if they find out."

"The record collection's probably worth a bit too," Harry remarked.  He drifted over to the record player and touched the cover of the top album.  "He was a Pink Floyd fan."

"Never heard of them."

"They're a Muggle band ….  There's some stuff by The Jinxsters here, too, and Dented Cauldrons."

"If there's a copy of the Cauldrons' last album there, _I_ might burgle your house," Ron told him, joining him by the record player.  "Only a hundred copies of _Blue String Fetishes_ were pressed.  Their vocalist, Shifty Pringle, committed suicide on stage during their last tour and the Ministry made the Cauldrons' record label ditch the album before it went into full production.  It was a massive scandal, Bill will tell you."

He sighed.  "Well, look at it this way, Harry.  If you don't fancy being lord of the manor, you could always sell all of this and retire to Monte Carlo."

"Do wizards retire to Monte Carlo, then?" Harry asked him, beginning to smile for the first time since they'd entered the room.

"'Course they do.  There's a big wizard community there.  People like the Malfoys have holiday homes there – maybe even you do."

"No one mentioned it on my birthday, and they mentioned everything else."  Harry would have said more, but there was a sudden loud _crack_ and Maffy appeared in the middle of the room.  She began to scold him gently at once.

"Young Master is not in bed!  Why is the young Master not in bed, when it is late and he is tired?  Maffy shall have to be very cross with him!"

"This is Maffy," Harry explained quickly to Ron, who was staring at the nurse in astonishment.  "She was my nurse … .  This is Ron, my friend from school, Maffy."

Maffy beamed and nodded at Ron for a moment, but was not to be deflected.  "Young Master should not be up at all hours, talking with his friends," she said firmly.  "Mr. Ronald Weasley is supposed to be in the Blue Suite!"  But she didn't seem particularly cross with either of them.  "You is having too much excitement," she fussed at Harry.  "Not good for the little Master.  Maffy is making his bed an hour ago, yes she is!  He is to get into it now and Maffy will tuck him in, and no nonsense about it!"

Ron swallowed his involuntary laugh at this, especially when he saw that Harry took _no offence whatsoever_ at being treated like a child.  He might say "Oh, all right!" and roll his eyes, but it would have taken a far less perceptive person than Ron to see that this was for show.  Harry obviously liked being fussed over by his nurse.  _And why not?_ Ron thought suddenly.  It wasn't as though there were many other nurturing females in his life.

He followed them to the bedroom door, taking in the simple elegance of James Potter's ebony four-poster bed, with its carved coat of arms on the headboard and restrained scrollwork detailing.  A matching chest with an upholstered lid stood at the foot, along with the similarly matching bedside cabinet and small table with two chairs to one side.  A marble fireplace was set into one wall; on the opposite side were two casement windows with leaded lights and broad, cushioned window seats.  The floor was polished boards almost obscured by a thick pile carpet of the darkest wine red, and the curtains pulled across the windows were also red, as was the cover of the bed and the bed-curtains.  Another door on the opposite side of the room presumably led to a dressing room and bathroom, as there was no sign of a wardrobe or dresser in the bedroom.

An old-fashioned nightshirt had been laid out; Harry was despatched to the dressing room to put it on while Maffy bustled about, turning down the covers and plumping the pillows on the bed.  When Harry returned he climbed into bed like a weary child, but he was not quite subdued enough not to make a single protest. 

"Ron can stay," he told the nurse insistently.

She fussed about this, but it was a token protest.  Tutting over the pair of them, she tucked Harry in with the promise that she would make up a bed for Ron on the couch in the sitting room.  This was achieved with lightning efficiency, and Ron found himself being bundled into a second nightshirt (which was rather short on him) and firmly tucked in as well less than ten minutes later.  Maffy fluttered about for a little while longer, then assured the pair of them that she would not be far away if they needed her in the night, dimmed the lights and departed.

It took less than five minutes for Harry to appear in the sitting room and drag Ron back into the bedroom with him.

 

xXx

 

"She'll throw a fit if she comes back and finds me here!" Ron warned Harry as he climbed into the sinfully comfortable bed, but he was amused more than anything else.

"She might, but she'd never say anything to anyone or do anything about it," Harry retorted, unconcerned.  "I'm the master in this house, remember?  I might not be able to live here yet, but the house-elves believe that what I say goes.  It's nobody else's business."




Ron sniggered a little as he settled himself.  "Harry Potter - the _Master!_ " he said, putting heavy emphasis on the word.  "Be afraid - be very afraid!"

"Watch it!" Harry said, amused.  "You can't be cheeky to me in my own house!"

"You're a bit of an autocrat, I reckon," Ron said, grinning.  "Are you going to start ordering me about, too?"

"I might.  If I do, will you do as you're told?"

"I _might_ ," Ron returned, and he sniggered.  He turned onto his stomach and amiably cursed the nightshirt he was wearing when it got rucked tight under his arms.  "This thing wasn't made for someone my size."

"So take it off," Harry replied.

"Is that your first order?"

"Nah, but I'm going to take mine off.  Stupid thing to wear in the summer - I don't even wear pyjamas most of the time."

"That nurse of yours'll definitely throw a fit if she comes back and finds me starkers," Ron pointed out, "and she'll raise the roof if we're both in bed together in the raw."

"I reckon I'll be awake long before she comes in in the morning," Harry said, unconcerned.  "We can always put them back on."

"Hm."  Ron was a bit doubtful, but the discomfort of the nightshirt won and he sat up to pull it off.  It helped that he could sense Harry running hot eyes over him as he did so.  "Do you really sleep starkers most of the time?" he asked as he lay back against the pillows again.

"Not at school," Harry admitted.  He was quick to strip his own nightshirt off and toss it to the foot of the bed.  "It gets too cold in the dungeons, even in the summer.  But at home I wear pyjama bottoms at most, or my boxers.  And it's too hot this time of the year to wear anything.  Why, do you?"

"Mum's funny about that sort of thing," Ron replied.  "Besides, if Bill and Charlie are at home we all have to double up.  I usually get stuck with Percy and he's dead prissy - sleeps with his pyjamas buttoned right up to the neck, even in the summer, and throws a fit if you wear a towel back from the bathroom."

Harry snorted.  "What's his problem?"

"Christ knows.  Terminal virginity, maybe," Ron said, with all the lofty scorn of someone who had had sex more than once in the past six months.  "He's still going out with Clearwater of Ravenclaw and she's the kind who won't put out before she gets a ring on her finger, you know?"

"Reckon he'll marry her?" Harry asked curiously.

Ron shrugged.  "Dunno.  Maybe."  He really wasn't interested.  "So, are you going to start ordering me around or what?"

"Nah."  Harry grinned at him.  "I'm too knackered.  Besides, you're already stripped.  Now, if you'd still been wearing that robe Bolly gave you ...."

"It's way cool, that robe is.  I mean, it belonged to a _Malfoy_.  Do you know how long they've been crapping on my family?  Hundreds of years."

"Seriously?"  Harry was intrigued.  "Why?"

Ron grabbed his pillow and wrapped himself around it comfortably.  "Dad'll tell you it's because he and Lucius Malfoy were always banging heads at school - Dad was a prefect.  But my granddad told me that it goes back a lot further than that.  There was a Weasley who was a money-lender a long time ago, before the Malfoy's were advanced to First Rank, and she fell out with the Malfoys over a bad debt - "

"'She'?" Harry interrupted, surprised.

"Yeah.  There aren't many girls in our family, but they can be dead stroppy."  Ron made a face.  "You know what Ginny's like!  Anyway, there was a bad debt and Gringotts got involved.  I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I know it damaged the Malfoys' financial reputation for a long time and they've never forgiven us.  Granddad said they could have been advanced a lot sooner if it hadn't been for that."

"Do you need to have a lot of money to be advanced then?"

"You're not supposed to, but I reckon it helps," Ron said darkly.

"Yeah, probably."  Harry decided to change the subject.  "So - that robe.  It really suited you, you know."  Ron snorted.  "No, it did!  Besides, it's a _Malfoy_ robe.  I reckon we should do something to commemorate the day a Weasley wore Malfoy clothes, don't you?"

"We could rip it apart, I s'pose," Ron said dryly.

"That'd be a pity," Harry said, "because it looks really good on you.  Besides, we can be more creative than that."

Ron looked at him. 

"Go on," Harry encouraged.  "Go and get it."

"You're nuts, you know?" Ron said, shaking his head and grinning, but he pushed the covers aside and went to collect the robe from the outer room.

Harry took it from him when he returned and turned it over in his hands, running the cloth through his fingers.

"What's it made of?" he wondered.

'Blue brocade' was not a description that did it justice.  It was a surprisingly heavy material, woven from a thick, glossy-looking deep blue thread that had silver fibres running through it.  Nubby raised patterns of small ivy leaf vines formed circular decal borders around _fleur-de-lys_ , while the spaces between were of a smooth, fine, horizontal weave.  There was self-coloured frogging on the shoulders and sleeves, and around the collar and bottom hem; the lining was a paler blue velvet.

Harry breathed a laugh in sheer disbelief.  "What kind of bloke buys something like this?  Look at it!"

"It's silk/wool blend on the outside," Ron said knowledgeably.  "My dad has a formal robe made of that."

"Yeah, but _feel_ it," Harry said, shoving a fold of the cloth into Ron's hands.  "The pattern's got a kind of nap to it, and the lining's _velvet_.  You don't buy something like this off the peg, you have to order it made for you.  It must have cost a small fortune, and he just dumped it here when he walked out!"

"It's a dodgy colour too," Ron said. 

"Yeah, I saw Sirius looking at it when you put it on.  It's nearly the same colour as all his formal robes are.  Black family colours!  This Praetonius Malfoy bloke was a bit cheeky, if you ask me."  Harry stroked a hand over the breast of the robe again.  "Charmed too.  Can you feel that?  There's the usual stuff to stop stains - "

"That'll be handy," Ron quipped, and Harry grinned.

"There's some kind of protection charm on it too."  He looked around and found his wand on the bedside table.  He ran it over the robe, and snorted.  "It's to stop the wearer being stabbed!  Remus showed me that charm while I was at Hogwarts.  I'll bet we couldn't rip this up if we tried."

"Sure you don't want to?" Ron asked, amused.

"Nope.  Put it on."

"More orders.  Yes, _Master_ Harry!"

Ron gave an exaggerated sigh and began to pull the robe on.  Getting dressed in bed was an awkward business; the full 'skirts' of the robe bunched up around him and it took a lot of tugging and wriggling to straighten it out.  From the look on Harry's face, he considered this a bonus.  The robe fastened down the front with big silver buttons bearing the Malfoy crest.  Ron lay back to button them up, saying, "This thing feels a bit weird without anything underneath.  The velvet's tickling ...."

"Don't do them up," Harry said.

"What, you want me to lie here, practically starkers, with my robe only hanging on by the sleeves?"  Ron couldn't suppress a snigger.

"You are dead kinky, Potter!"

"Are you complaining?"

"Not really ...."

Harry leaned over him, dipping a hand inside the robe to stroke the velvet.  Ron drew a breath, feeling something brush against his thigh.  Harry was aroused, and the knowledge aroused Ron too; their eyes met for a brief moment, Harry's unshielded by his spectacles for once, and his pupils were dilated.  Then he quickly looked away, but Ron could hear his irregular breathing.

"What does it feel like?"

"Ticklish," Ron said, then he felt Harry's warm fingers touch his side and his muscles jumped in response.

Harry shifted so that he was propped up on his right elbow with his hand cupped under Ron's neck.  He was mostly above Ron now, one knee moving to slide between Ron's thighs, and they were almost nose to nose.  His left hand wandered pleasantly over Ron's skin, touching and tweaking his nipples and slipping down his belly to finger his navel.

"Do you like it?" he asked quietly.

Like what?  The velvet that was brushing his skin in a way that was just on the right side of tickling?  Or the meandering hand that was doing wonderful things to his body?

"Yeah," he said, and was startled at how throatily the word came out.

"Good."  Harry's fingers left his navel and slipped back up his belly and chest and throat, until they curved firmly around Ron's jaw.  Their noses rubbed together as he moved closer, and they kissed, at first hesitantly and then more confidently, almost sloppily, all lips and tongues and hot breath.

The one cell in Ron's brain that wasn't occupied elsewhere observed idly that Harry seemed to like kissing a lot.  He was all hands and tongue in bed - not that Ron was complaining, it was just something he'd noticed.  Then Harry moved his knee a little and - oh!  Ron arched his back slightly, rubbing his cock against that obligingly provided thigh.  There was just enough hair on Harry's leg to set up a pleasant level of friction against his cock and balls and he gasped for breath, clutching at the other youth.  And that too was marvellous, for he'd forgotten that Harry was naked and there was skin, smooth, hot, sweat-damp skin under his fingers ....

"Like it?" Harry repeated breathlessly, setting up a steady movement.

"Yes!"

"According to that book Sirius gave me," Harry continued unsteadily, "they call this _frottage_."

"Unh?"  Ron's brain couldn't quite make that out; it was too busy enjoying the lovely, lovely rubbing.  "Feels like ... fucking ... to me," he managed.

"Nuh."  Harry paused to kiss him again, but didn't stop the gentle motion of his knee.  Just to be sure he wouldn't, though, Ron hooked his right foot over Harry's ankle to keep him in place.  "Frottage," Harry said again, after a moment or two.  "It says ... _sexual stimulation through rubbing ... especially when ... clothed_ s'called frottage.  That's what we're doing.  Fucking's ... different."

"Great," Ron mumbled.  Frankly, he couldn't give a flying fuck in a high wind for definitions at that moment.  "Just - don't - stop ...."

He tucked his head into the curve of Harry's neck and experimentally licked the softer skin there, tasting the bitter salt of sweat.  Harry's breath hitched slightly; liking the sound, Ron did it again and Harry gasped, speeding up the pace of his rubbing until Ron came, hard and unexpectedly, with a deep groan.

That was the problem with being seventeen, he thought fuzzily as he subsided into the pillows and Harry slid off him.  It was _fantastic,_ but it just didn't last long enough.  On the other hand, practice made perfect.  And he thought he could manage more than one practice session in a night.

Then a niggling thought intruded into his orgasm-addled brain, and he dragged himself up onto one elbow to look at his friend.

"Did you come?" he asked groggily.

Harry's grin was wry, but his eyes were feverish.  "Not yet."

Ron pushed his post-sex lethargy to the back of his mind and sat up.  "Right," he said, shrugging out of the robe.  "You put this on now."

"Eh?" 

"We're desecrating this thing properly.  Put it on."

Harry did as he was told, managing a snigger.  "Yes, _Master_ Ron!"

Ron gave him a little push when the oversized robe was on, and Harry lay back against the pillows obediently, wriggling his shoulders into the velvet and splaying his thighs a little in a brazen hint.  His cock was already straining towards Ron eagerly; Ron bent over it, cupping Harry's balls in one hand gently.

"Dunno what your book calls this," he said, grinning up at Harry, "but where _I_ come from, we call it a blow-job ...."


	9. Chapter 9

Ron awoke before Harry the following morning.  It was extremely early, but the sun was already up and filtering through the curtains, and only a cooling charm cast by Maffy the night before was stopping the room from becoming uncomfortably hot.

Instead it was pleasantly cool, and Ron lay with one arm under his head, gazing up at the inlaid wooden starburst pattern in the canopy above and thinking.  Mostly his mind ran over the conversation with Dumbledore and the other adults; Remus Lupin might say that all they asked was Ron be Harry's friend, but Ron felt it was much more than that.  Harry's future welfare was in his hands; he was the one responsible for making sure that Harry would be a _person_ and not a symbol of something when the conflict with Voldemort was over.

He didn't entertain for one moment the possibility of Harry dying.

But here they were in James Potter's bedroom, and if ever there was a symbol of what Harry currently wasn't then this was it.  In another life, this could have been Harry's own room.  They were surrounded by his father's things, sleeping in his bed, wearing – Ron suspected – his nightshirts.  And yet Harry never talked about his father and his attitude towards all of this was clearly ambivalent.  _Like it belongs to this other Harry Potter bloke and I was just there by mistake_ , he'd said after his birthday.

That needed to change, Ron thought.  After all, Harry _was_ the last heir of the Potters.  He needed to accept that and learn that being himself wasn't at odds with being a Potter and a wizard.  But before Ron tackled that, he needed to know what the problem was with James Potter.

"Your ears are smoking," a sleepy voice said, and Ron turned his head to look at Harry with a grin.  The younger boy slept on his stomach, which was a habit Ron remembered from Easter, and one side of his face was crisscrossed with pillow-marks.  Without his glasses his green eyes seemed much bigger and more striking, even when clouded with sleep.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron asked him, amused.

"Means I can hear the cogs grinding."  Harry turned onto his side so that he could look at Ron properly.  "What are you thinking about?"

"Your dad, I s'pose," Ron said, glancing up at the canopy again.  "Do you reckon he decided to decorate his room like this, or did someone else do it?"

Harry shrugged.  "No idea.  Why?"

"Pretty fancy.  Still comfortable, though.  I mean, it's not like you'd be scared to sit on the furniture in this house.  It's a place where people live, you know?  Not a museum."

"Yeah, I suppose it is.  Except that no one lives here but the house-elves now."

"You will one day," Ron pointed out.

"Do you reckon?"

"What – you think you won't?"

"Well, always supposing I survive Voldemort – "

"Which you will."

Harry managed a half smile for this.  "If I do, I still won't be able to live here until I'm twenty-one.  And even then it'd be a bit weird, don't you think?  This place is huge."

Ron looked at him.  "The Manor is huge too."

"But Sirius and Remus are there."

"So you'll have to invite people around," Ron told him, and he rolled his eyes.  "Hold parties!  Socialise!  Collect weird things, like Sirius's ancestors!"

Harry began to grin.  "A few of those chairs in the drawing room would liven things up a bit."

Ron chuckled.  "Well, maybe _not_ like Sirius's ancestors.  But I'm just saying you could do stuff like that if you wanted.  It's your house, after all."

"There's this Muggle lord," Harry told him.  "He's a complete hippy – you know?  Weird clothes and funny habits.  He has all these women he calls his "wifelets" and he redecorated the family pile with kinky paintings he made himself.  You reckon I should be like that?  'Cause it could be fun."

"I reckon _Sirius_ should," Ron said, grinning.  "The way he's been stripping stuff out of the Manor, and he's got to redecorate anyway ….  And he hates his family, so he could really stick two fingers up at them if he wanted and paint funny murals on the wall, like that one in the bath-house you showed me."

"He probably shouldn't bother with the wifelets though.  I reckon Remus wouldn't take to that much."

"Nah.  Well, I reckon I wouldn't be too happy if you started keeping wifelets here."

Harry made a rude noise.  "Yeah – because I'm such a _babe-magnet_."

"I was thinking of Tony Goldstein," Ron deadpanned, and Harry made an even ruder noise.

"Goldstein can keep his hands to himself!"

"He'd better!"

They both laughed and settled back against the pillows.

"So what was your dad like?" Ron asked at length.

"Dunno.  I was only a year old when he died."

"Yeah, but people have told you stuff, haven't they?  You must _know_ something about him."

There was a long pause, then Harry sighed a little. 

"He was captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team and Head Boy, and he was best mates with Sirius, Remus and Peter Pettigrew.  They used to call themselves the Marauders.  When he left school, he became an Auror and married my mother.  They had me and then Voldemort killed them.  That's all I know."

Ron drew a quiet breath.  "Why do I get the feeling you don't think much of him?" he asked.

He expected Harry to brush him off, so he was a little surprised when the other boy said, "Because I reckon he wasn't the great bloke everyone says he was.  I reckon he was a pain in the arse when he wanted to be.  The clever-dick types who play jokes on people always are."

Ron twitched a little at this, because it came pretty close to a description of Fred and George.  But Fred and George were not always the loveable rogues they – and others - saw themselves as.  Having been the butt of some of their less endearing pranks over the years, he knew it better than most, and he had a good idea of what they were capable of.  They were his brothers and he loved them; he respected their intelligence and appreciated their sense of humour and inventiveness, but that didn't mean he wasn't careful in his dealings with them.  Had James Potter been like that?

"Was he a joker?" he asked Harry.

"Yeah.  The Marauders were known for it."

"Still … that doesn't mean he was a bad bloke."

"Doesn't mean he was a great bloke either," Harry said flatly.

Ron wondered how to counter this without setting Harry's back up.  "I reckon most people aren't one thing or the other," he said finally.  "Okay, maybe he could be a git sometimes, but he must have been mostly okay or your mum wouldn't have married him, right?"

"I don't know."

"Well, have you talked to Sirius about him?  He was your dad's mate."

"Exactly," Harry replied irritably.  "He's going to say my dad was brilliant no matter what, isn't he?"

"Remus probably wouldn't though," Ron persisted.

"I don't know," Harry said restlessly.  "What does it matter anyway?"

Ron gave him a sharp look.  "Harry, he's your _dad_.  Why would you want to think he's a git if he isn't?"

"Wasn't," Harry corrected him automatically.

"Whatever."

"Look," Harry said, growing frustrated with the conversation.  "I saw something, okay?  In a Pensieve – not mine, it was ages ago.  And my dad – and Sirius – they weren't nice people, okay?"

Finally they were getting somewhere!  Then Ron thought about what Harry had just said.

"Whose memory was it?" he asked shrewdly.

"Does it matter?"

"Well it obviously wasn't Sirius or Remus's.  So whose was it?  Dumbledore's?"

"It was Snape's," Harry snapped.  "All right?  Happy now?"

Snape's?  How on earth – "Harry, he hates you!  You've said it yourself loads of times!  Of course he wouldn't show you anything good about your dad or Sirius!"

"He didn't show me.  I looked when he was out of the room."

This raised so many questions that Ron wasn't sure where to begin.

"Tell me what you saw," he said finally, in a flat tone that brooked no opposition.

But Harry wasn't that easily coerced.

"What does it matter to you anyway?" he demanded.  "He's dead and he's not coming back, so it doesn't matter what I think of him!"

"Well it obviously _does_ matter to you or you wouldn't get so upset about him," Ron retorted.

"Look, they weren't what I thought they were, okay?  They – everyone goes on about how great they were, and how Dad was Head Boy, and he and Sirius and Remus did all these cool pranks and stuff – it's not true!  Not the way everyone tells it!"  Harry sat up with a jerk, deeply agitated.  "They were – "  But he was so upset that he couldn't get the words out.

"They were what?" Ron asked cautiously after a moment or two of watching his friend's shoulders heave.

"They were like Dudley," Harry muttered.

"Your cousin Dudley?  The Muggle?"

"No, my pet hippogriff Dudley!"  But the words lacked bite.  "They were creeps and bullies and they picked on people.  They picked on Snape.  Just because he was there."

Ron's first instinct was to make some comment about it only being Snape, after all, and he was a miserable, greasy git – but he stopped himself just in time.  It wasn't as though Harry liked Snape any more than he did, after all.  And Ron had heard enough about Dudley Dursley to think he understood the comparison.  If Harry was comparing his father and godparents to his cousin, then he meant it and there was probably a good reason for it.

"How old were they?" he asked eventually.

Harry shrugged.  "Fifteen – maybe sixteen.  They'd just taken their OWLs."

"What did they do to him?"

Harry hesitated, then described the scene he'd seen in the Pensieve.

"They made my dad Head Boy," he said, when he'd finished.  "Dumbledore must have known – he knows every damn thing.  Why would he do something like that?"

Mistakes were made with the prefects, Ron knew.  The heads of the four houses chose prefects to suit themselves, which certainly explained how Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson had ended up in that position.  But the Head Boy and Head Girl were selected by Dumbledore personally.  And like Harry, Ron had a lot of faith in Dumbledore's perceived omniscience.

"Your dad must have changed," he ventured cautiously.  "I mean, that's the only explanation, isn't it?  He must have been different when he got older."

"I don't see how," Harry muttered, leaning back against the pillows.

"Maybe something happened to him.  To all of them."

Harry thought about that.  "I suppose … well, there was the Shrieking Shack thing.  He saved Snape's life after Sirius sent Snape up there when Remus was changed."

Ron considered that.  And something else occurred to him.

"Look," he said quietly.  "I get that you're mad at your dad about that stuff, because it looks really bad.  And I reckon I understand how you feel, with Dudley and all that.  But there's something I don't get."  Harry looked at him questioningly, and Ron braced himself.  "I don't get why you blame your dad for all of it.  I mean, you've said it yourself – _they_ were like Dudley.  All of them.  Not just your dad, but Sirius and Remus too, and Pettigrew.  So what makes it different for you with Sirius and Remus?  Why do you blame just him and not them?"

Silence.

"I'm just asking," Ron said, when no response seemed to be forthcoming.

"Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban," Harry said, "and Remus was on his own all that time, and couldn't get a decent job or anything."

"So you're saying they paid for it?"

"Don't you think they did?"

"Maybe," Ron said, and he hoped his tone wasn't as dry as it sounded in his own ears, "but if you're going to look at it like that, mate – well, your dad's _dead_.  Don't you think he paid for it too?"

 

xXx

 

Breakfast was held in the Breakfast Room that morning, and Sirius couldn't help thinking that it was mildly reminiscent of breakfast at Hogwarts.  The house-elves, possibly wanting to show that they hadn't lost their touch over the years, had laid out a spread that included porridge, eggs, bacon, sausages, kippers and toast.  Not to mention tea, coffee and several varieties of juice.

Fortunately, Mad-Eye Moody had brought a couple of people from the Order over the night before and they were all of them only too happy to enjoy this unexpected feast.  In fact, the only person who seemed less than ready to appreciate it was Harry, although he put on a very good show whenever Dilly or Drooby popped up to make sure everyone was sufficiently supplied.  Sirius wondered what was going on there, especially when he caught Ron giving Harry anxious, sideways looks, but he wasn't about to ask.

Leaving the Rose House was a protracted business.  Ron and Bill went first, out of necessity; a message had arrived from Molly Weasley, and the need to get fresh clothes and reassure their mother sent both of them Apparating to the Burrow as soon as the last cup of coffee was drained.  Moody took his people off next, and that left Sirius and Remus with Harry, who was obliged to do a quick tour of the house to thank the various elves for their hospitality and take a loving farewell of Maffy.

Then they headed back to the Manor. 

The fumigation cones had burned out overnight, leaving a lingering smell of burnt seaweed behind.  The three of them went through the open parts of the building, throwing open windows and setting enchanted fans wafting, and Harry sent Hedwig off with notes to the various people expected that day suggesting that they waited until after lunch once more, so that the stench could clear a bit.

"Look at it this way," Remus suggested as they all stretched out on the grass in front of the terrace.  "At least we know there won't be any chizpurfles now."

"Yeah, that was giving me sleepless nights," Sirius said dryly.  "On the up side, there probably won't be much in the way of other vermin either.  In fact, I don't know why we didn't think of fumigation in the first place."

There was a long pause.  Harry had brought his dragon puppet outside with him and was trying to fix the overly-tight wing joint.

"Are you all right?" Sirius asked, after a moment or two of watching him.

"Yeah," Harry muttered, not looking up.  He laid the dragon on the grass for a moment, with the wings spread out, then tapped it with his wand.  The tartan pattern inverted itself, making him frown.  He tapped it again.  The colours changed, becoming a hideously bright purple, green and yellow combination instead of the more soothing blue, white and red.  The frown turned to a scowl.

"I think I can stand the stink long enough to make some tea," Remus decided, and he quickly disappeared into the kitchen.

"What's up?" Sirius asked quietly, sitting up. 

Harry wouldn't meet his eyes.  "Nothing."

"Right.  Well, I don't know what you're trying to do to that thing, but it's not working.  Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Whatever it is that's cocking up your spells."  Sirius reached out and eased Harry's wand from his hand, putting it down on top of the dragon puppet.  "Come on – something's been bothering you since breakfast, and it looked like something to do with Ron.  Have you had a fight with him?"

"Nope," Harry muttered.  "He was being a big-mouth, that's all."

"Compared to some of his family, he's a breath of sweet reason.  What was he holding forth about?"

"He was asking about Dad," Harry said.

Sirius was taken by surprise and stared at him for a moment.  "What did he want to know?"

Harry shied away from the question.  He picked at the short, dried out grass for a moment, then asked, "What changed?"

"What do you mean?"

"What changed?  What made Dumbledore make my dad the Head Boy?"

This was the last question Sirius was expecting.  Harry was so resistant to talking about James Potter that the smallest thing could become a battleground.  And yet suddenly he was asking for information, and on a vexed question that Sirius had never been able to broach before.  It was too important for a hasty answer; Sirius rested his arms loosely on his knees and tried to frame a response.

"Look," he said finally.  "You've got to realise that things were different after the Shrieking Shack business.  It made us all realise that we'd been going too far.  Me especially," he admitted, "but James too.  A lot of the stuff we did, it was James and me egging each other on and dragging Remus and Peter with us.  The Shack thing though …."  He paused, thinking back, then continued with a little difficulty. "What you've got to understand is that even when I knew Snape was heading for the Shack, I didn't think it through.  I was angry with him about something and I didn't think about what could happen if – when – he got inside.  He could have died, he could have been infected, and more importantly Remus would have been blamed for it.  But that never crossed my mind.

"But James realised, the moment I told him what I'd done.  Of the two of us, he was always the one who saw the implications of everything we did before we did it.  And he didn't hesitate, he went straight after Snape.  That might be why Dumbledore made him Head Boy later on, although after Remus handed his prefect's badge back Professor McGonagall didn't have much choice but to appoint James instead.  And he straightened out, made an effort to do the job properly.  I'm not saying we became saints," Sirius said, glancing quickly at Harry.  "We just changed the kind of things we did.  The real work on the Map was done after the Shack incident."

"So Dad did change?" Harry pressed him.

Sirius looked at him.  "Changing suggests that he was different person before that," he said.  "He was always a decent person, Harry, but after the Shack business he straightened out."

Harry gave him a look that could best be described as politely disbelieving.

"You _did_ pick on Snape," he pointed out.

Sirius contemplated his accusing face for a moment.

"Harry, you saw _one_ incident in that Pensieve, and you saw it completely without context."

"I heard what my mum said to you both – "

"You wouldn't have seen _anything_ if Snape hadn't been there," Sirius interrupted him sharply.  "So ask yourself something - if we bullied him so badly, why was he hanging around us in the first place?"

Harry opened his mouth – and shut it again.  Sirius watched this with a touch of satisfaction.

"He … wasn't exactly hanging around you," Harry said after a moment, but he didn't sound too sure.

"I'll bet he wasn't exactly keeping his distance either.  Harry, come on!  I know you were picked on by your cousin and his friends – did you hang around places where you knew they'd find you, if you had a choice?  Of course not!  But Snape was always hanging around wherever we were – always being in places he didn't have any good reason to be and eavesdropping.  He started out as a pathetic little informant for the Slytherin prefects and it must have become a habit.  Sometimes we couldn't leave the Gryffindor common room without tripping over him.  And before you get carried away with feeling sorry for him – " Harry snorted dismissively in a way that made Sirius grin inwardly, "just remember that he could give as good as he got, nine times out of ten.  Yeah, we started it _that_ time.  Other times it would be him and his mates – Mcnair, my brother Regulus, people like that – lying in wait for us.  They had a thing about nabbing Moony when he came out of Arithmancy, or Peter if he forgot the time and left the library after curfew."

"Or the memorable occasion when they cornered James alone in the changing rooms after Quidditch," Remus said, appearing between the two of them and setting a tea tray down on the grass.  He dropped down beside it, cross-legged.  "He had a habit of lingering in the showers after everyone else left – let's pass on why – and they were waiting for him when he came out."  He shook his head.  "Messy."

"Why?" Harry asked, after a visible struggle with himself.

"That was seventh year," Sirius replied.  "Lily went looking for him when he didn't appear at the party in the common room.  She charmed their robes to attack them."

"And all we could get out of James afterwards was that he managed to keep his towel on the whole time," Remus added.

"Prat," Sirius commented.  "I told him wanking in the changing room showers was asking for trouble."

Remus picked up the teapot.  "Tea?"

"Please."  Harry picked up the dragon and peered at the wing joint once more.  "The joint's too tight and the pattern doesn't match," he remarked gloomily.  "I reckon I'm never going to get the hang of this."

The discussion of James Potter was clearly at an end.  Sirius stifled a sigh; at least it was a start.

 

xXx

 

The carpet and the crystal chandeliers in the ballroom were all laced with curses similar to the Infestation Hex.  Knowing what he was looking for helped Bill Weasley work out how to disarm them, though, and with assistance (mostly from Harry, to further his education) he fired each one off harmlessly.  The chandeliers were removed and put into storage along with the portraits and least useful pieces of furniture, and the carpet was rolled up. 

Stripped of all removable adornments, the ballroom was an echoing cavern.  The rest of the afternoon and much of the evening was spent cleaning as much dirt as possible from it.  Sirius had been right about one thing, though.  The fumigation had at least rid most of the house of spiders and other house-dwelling insects, although the cellars were another matter.

That was Thursday.  Friday brought Professor Snape to the Manor, along with Kingsley Shacklebolt, to assist in investigating the cellar workroom while the rest of them tackled the wine cellar.  In the event, this involved Remus going into the cellar to set spider-traps ("Definitely Rat-Eating Funnel Spiders," he reported, after an initial recce that left him nursing a bite on his left wrist), with Sirius assisting, while Harry and Ron stayed in the storage room above and tried to mend the least-damaged chairs and tables stored there.  Nothing would persuade Ron to go an inch closer to the cellar than he had to, but Harry was made of stronger stuff and cheerfully survived a controlled encounter with one of the hairy, eight-legged inhabitants - Remus deeming it to be another useful furtherance of his godson's education to acquaint him with their habits.

By lunchtime there were two stacks in the courtyard; one of mended chairs and a much smaller one of spider traps.

"We should be able to sell these for a few Galleons," Remus said with satisfaction, when he emerged with another couple of traps and a crate full of fuzzy egg bundles.  "You'd be surprised the uses spider venom can be put to.  And once they're defanged, some people like to keep them as pets."

Ron turned decidedly green at this idea.  Then the ground shivered beneath their feet, leaving them all startled and uneasy.

"What that - ?" Sirius began, only for him to stop, staring. 

Kingsley, Bill and Snape reeled around the corner of the house, coughing amid a cloud of acrid smoke.

 

xXx

 

"Not that I think we actually needed a workroom of that specification, but isn't it just typical of my old man that he'd booby-trap the damn thing to blow up?" Sirius said bitterly.  "Hold still, you great berk!"

This was directed at Snape, whose face he was dabbing with a handful of cotton wool soaked in a dark blue potion. 

The potions master was less than appreciative of the attention.  "Get your damned paws off me, Black, and for the last time keep your noxious, ill-brewed substances away from my face – "

"Oh, shut up!  For your information I bought it from Bloodworths, and don't you dare start nagging me about shop-bought potions, because I know you shop there yourself.  Bloody hypocritical ingrate."

"If you had bothered to conduct the smallest investigation of this house when you first came back here – "

"- It would probably be a heap of rubble by now, with Remus and me underneath it.  And one word from you on _that_ subject, and I'll finish the booby-trap's job!" 

"Settle down, children!" Remus said, from the doorway of the sitting room.  "Ron, could you give me a hand with these plates, please?"

Snape made to get up, pushing Sirius's hand away again.  "I have another appointment to keep …."

"Surely you can spare the time to eat?" Remus said mildly.  "You've no idea how long it took me to wheedle the recipe for lemon and cracked pepper dressing out of the Hogwarts house-elves, and I remembered that you're partial to salmon salad.  I hope you're not going to turn your nose up at it."

"There's enough of it to turn up," Sirius said, and he yelped when Remus smacked the back of his head lightly.

"Enough of that!  Besides, we did think you might like to sample one of the wines from the cellar, Severus."

"I strongly doubt that any wine cellar owned by you contains anything but vinegar," Snape said savagely, directing himself to Sirius as though Remus hadn't spoken, "and in any case I have no intention of imbibing anything under this roof!  Good day."  And he stalked out of the house.

There was a pause.

"Well, I have no intention of refusing first aid, food _or_ wine," Kingsley Shacklebolt said in his deep, calm voice as he nodded polite thanks to Harry, who was capping the jar of ointment and removing a waste paper basket half full of used cotton wool.  "I will agree, Black, that it's a pity your father chose to be so destructive in his choice of wards.  It's rare to find a magical workroom so well shielded – most of the damage will almost certainly be rubble from the goblin-fired brick lining of the facility.  Both the magical and the physical construction was excellent and there should be no damage to the foundations of the house or the rest of the basement."

"That's something," Remus said quietly.  "Sirius, will you open these bottles please?  Yes, it would be a tremendous nuisance to have got this far only to discover that we have to demolish the Manor because of damaged foundations."

"Unlikely," Shacklebolt said.  "The base protections of the Manor will thwart all but the most inventive attempts to unseat it."

"Perhaps so, but it's a fact that what has been built can be destroyed."

"I like the casual way you go on about the Manor being demolished," Bill remarked, amused.  "Doesn't seem to bother you!"

Remus only smiled, but Sirius barked a laugh.  "He's been living with me too long!"  He uncorked the two bottles Remus had brought in with the salad and began to pour the wine.  "This one's a Carpathian Gold 1967," he said, charming the glasses over to each person.  "There was a case of it in the cellar, so I'm thinking it's probably quite dry – that's how my father liked his wine."

"Is that a good or a bad thing?" Harry asked.  He swirled the wine in the glass under his nose in imitation of Sirius.  "Smells like lavender.  And smoke."

"A toast?" Remus prompted his partner.

Sirius looked amused for a moment.  "Moony, you old romantic!"  He held out his glass over the living room table.  "Health and fortune, everyone."

They all touched glasses and there was a pause as everyone tasted the wine.  Sirius had been absolutely right; it was astringently dry and both Harry and Ron put their glasses aside after no more than a sip.  The others lingered over theirs; Bill's expression said he could take it or leave it, while Kingsley merely raised his brows as he savoured a mouthful.  Remus made a face, saying, "Dry is the word, I think".

"Disappointing," was Sirius's assessment.  "But only to be expected, I suppose.  My father was the only person who thought he was a wine expert."

"It's a pity," Remus said.  "Several restorative potions use dry white wine as a base, and since I strongly doubt that you, Harry and I will be knocking this back in the evenings, I was thinking we could give a few bottles to Snape as a peace offering."

"Wasted effort," Sirius said with a shrug.  "He's a wine snob himself, so I don't suppose he'd accept them even if we were best mates.  Which we're not, in case anyone was wondering."

Harry grinned, but Bill said dryly, "We noticed that.  What _is_ it with you two, if you don't mind me asking?  You fight worse than brothers."

"Clearly you never knew me and my brother," Sirius replied, equally dryly.  "We fought like the heads on a Runespoor.  The witty repartee with Cousin Severus is affectionate by comparison."

Bill looked dissatisfied with this answer, but he had no opportunity to pursue the matter; Sirius briskly changed the subject.

"After dinner we'd better take a look at that cellar.  How bad do you think the damage was to the wards, Bill?"

"I felt a load of them unstring themselves as we were dodging the flying bricks," Bill replied after a moment.  "It won't be possible to make a full assessment until some of the rubble is shifted, but Kingsley's right – there won't be any structural damage to the house or foundations."

Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment, then looked at Remus and raised a questioning brow.  Remus nodded slightly.

"Sounds like an interesting little project for two or three advanced students of Defence Against the Dark Arts," he said.

Harry sat up straight.  "You just want us to do the dirty work, hauling bricks and rubbish!" he said accusingly.

"Damage clearance is work often left to apprentices in fields like ours," Kingsley remarked before Remus could answer the accusation.  "The privilege of working on the more interesting tasks is earned, I'm afraid.  Besides, you could learn a lot from repairing that workroom.  It was a classic of its type."

Harry clearly wanted to take issue with this, but he was interrupted by the chimes on the kitchen Floo suddenly ringing. 

Sirius looked at Remus, surprised.  "Were we expecting anyone else?"

"Evidently not, or the alarm wouldn't be going off – "  Remus put his plate aside and went to investigate.  When he returned five minutes later, he was looking thoughtful.  "Harry, you have a visitor."

Harry stared at him.  "Blaise isn't due yet," was all he could think of to say, but Remus simply held the door open for him, so with a sigh he put his mostly empty plate to one side and went to look.

He was astonished to find Petuarius Pettifer waiting for him in the kitchen. 

"Sir!"  Utterly nonplussed, Harry quickly bowed to the elder wizard and experienced a rare moment of discomfort at the knowledge that he was still wearing the dirty jeans and t-shirt he'd worn for the morning's work.

Pettifer bowed gravely in return.  He didn't look a great deal different to the day of Harry's party; he wore a smart robe of amber velvet with a beautifully tied cravat and waistcoat, carried a slender cane with a silver handle shaped like a hound's head, and his top hat lay upturned on the kitchen table with a pair of tan suede gloves inside it. 

"Pray forgive the intrusion, Henry my boy.  It was not my intention to interrupt your luncheon," he said.

"Not - not at all, sir," Harry stammered.  "We were a bit late because there was an explosion in the cellar."

The old man's eyes were studying him; his brows went up and the corner of his mouth quirked slightly.  "Indeed?  Not a serious incident, one hopes?"

"I don't think so.  Sirius's dad booby-trapped it," Harry told him candidly. 

Pettifer nodded.  "Yes … that does sound like an action Gaius Black would take.  Well, no matter.  We have other things to discuss today, you and I."

Harry belatedly remembered the rules of hospitality.  "Won't you come into the sitting room, sir?"

"I would prefer to speak with you alone, Henry."  Pettifer gestured to the kitchen table.  "Shall we?  I am quite at home where the food is, as my dear departed wife would have told you."

"I didn't know you were a widower, sir.  I'm sorry."

"Not at all, dear boy – an unchangeable consequence of advancing years, unfortunately."

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Harry offered.

At this, the elder wizard chuckled.  "No, I thank you.  Come – sit with me for a moment."  He waited for Harry to take the chair next to him, then said calmly, "I have been talking with Dumbledore regarding your continued education, especially in the light of certain matters concerning the Order of the Phoenix."

"I didn't know you were a member of the Order, sir," Harry said, disconcerted.

"Perhaps it was not necessary that you know until now," Pettifer suggested, and somehow Harry couldn't take offence when he said it.  "Or perhaps it was better that you remained innocent of some Order activities.  No matter."  He leaned on his cane, watching Harry's face thoughtfully, but Harry wasn't fooled into thinking the cane was there for support.  It was a prop to the old man's personality, not his body.  "When your grandfather asked me to become your trustee, he knew he could place your welfare in my hands with complete confidence.  Had it been possible to do so I would have taken you into my own household when your parents died and your godfather was rendered unavailable to you, but I allowed myself to be persuaded otherwise.  It may be that this was a mistake, as much of your education as a gentleman wizard remains incomplete, but we shall see."

Now Harry was bewildered.  "Sir?"

"You are being trained in the art of the formal duel, yes?"

"Yes, sir.  Auror Shacklebolt has been teaching me, and a few others."

"Indeed.  Unfortunately, Auror Shacklebolt has many duties elsewhere and it would not be entirely appropriate for you to receive all of your education from your guardians.  It is always better if one's tutor is someone a little distanced from one personally.  And as I have pointed out to your guardians, there are many other aspects of your education that have been neglected.  You are _paterfamilias_ of your line, Henry, with duties and responsibilities to your ancestors and your descendants.  You will hold a seat on the Wizengamot when you are twenty-one and with it come responsibilities to our society.  However excellent your Muggle relatives may be, they cannot possibly have prepared you for this."

Harry hoped his face wasn't displaying his true feelings at the mention of his "excellent" Muggle relatives; he didn't want Pettifer to take it the wrong way. 

"After discussing the matter with Dumbledore, we have determined that I shall be your guide and teacher in these matters until you return to school," Pettifer continued calmly, if somewhat inexorably.  "I think you will agree that they are rather more important to your future than removing booby-traps from your godfather's cellars, hm?"

Harry thought he detected a twinkle in the old man's eyes as he said this and had to hide a grin.

"The wine cellar had Rat-Eating Funnel Spiders as well," he commented.

"Of that I have no doubt, although quite _why_ it would be necessary to protect Gaius Black's rather odd wine selections in such a way I confess escapes me," Pettifer said gravely.

"You think they were put there deliberately, sir?"  That possibility hadn't occurred to Harry before, but he could see at once that the method might be attractive to people of Sirius's parents' persuasion.

"It would not be the first such scheme I have heard of," Pettifer replied, "and there is little other excuse for keeping a species far from native to our climate in such unsuitable conditions."

"That explains it, then.  But I can think of better ways to spend a morning than trapping them."

Pettifer smiled.  "On that we are in agreement.  So - shall we leave them to it and be about our own business?"

"Now sir?"

"Unless you have not yet finished your meal.  But there is no time like the present, Henry."

"I'm ready!" Harry said eagerly.

"Excellent.  Now, Lupin informed me that the old ballroom has been rendered moderately safe and we may do our worst in there with his and Black's blessings.  Will you show the way?"

As he led the way through the servants' passage and across the courtyard Harry saw Pettifer observing the condition of the place with pursed lips and felt absurdly embarrassed. 

"There's a lot of damage," he said uncomfortably.  "Some of the preservation spells weren't so good and there are curses everywhere.  Things are in a mess."

"This was always an uninviting house," was the unexpected reply.  "Poor choice in furnishings, appointments and lighting, and inadequate attention given to its upkeep.  A great pity.  Much could be done with the essential fabric of the building, but the Blacks were always given to overly grandiose ideas whilst squeezing the budget.  Your godfather would be well advised to rid the house of the mouldings and carvings, and adopt a simpler style.  Lighter colours and some work on the windows would improve matters greatly.  But it will take a great deal of work."

And probably a great deal of money, although neither of them said so.  Harry guessed that a man of Pettifer's rank and probable wealth was unlikely to consider the expense a significant issue compared to the time and inconvenience involved.

He led the way into the ballroom, wondering what Pettifer would say about the bare boards of the floor, the windows without their long curtains, and the paler spots on the walls where the paintings had been removed.  But:

"This will do well.  Plenty of space to move about and little that can be harmed."

"There were some pretty nasty curses in here," Harry couldn't stop himself saying.  His shoulders itched at the memory.  "There was a chandelier smashed in the middle of the carpet and when Sirius went to get it – well, we had to fumigate everything."

"Logical," Pettifer replied calmly.  "Were an intruder merely passing through the room, he would walk around the edge of the rugs in all likelihood.  Someone intent upon damage would take a more central stance."  He removed his outer robe and laid it on one of the angular chairs at the side of the room.  "Very well," he said.  "Your godfather tells me you were given a copy of the rules of the duel for your birthday.  Have you read it?"

"Some of it, sir.  It's a bit daunting," Harry replied.

Pettifer grunted.  "Truly spoken.  Most wizards and witches of rank learn the form from their relatives and by observation as they grow up.  You lack their advantage, but I would hope that by way of balance you will have learned none of the bad habits which are so often passed on through family members.  We shall see.  Now, under normal circumstances we would each be accompanied by our second and a formal referee would oversee the engagement.  I anticipate no fights to the death today, though, so let us engage in a few bouts so that I may judge your strengths and weaknesses."

Harry was brought up short by this.  For some reason it hadn't occurred to him that when Mr. Pettifer said he would teach him to duel, he meant he would duel with him _personally_.  Of course, Sirius had said he was a notable dualist, but … well, he was old.

Pettifer was watching him through rather hooded eyes.  "Thinking I'm an easy target, Henry?  An old man who cannot move so quickly?"

"No sir!  Of course not," Harry said quickly.

"Ah, but I think you were!"  The older wizard chuckled softly.  "Shall we put it to the test?"

As the only possible answer to this was to agree, Harry drew back to the regulation twenty paces, faced his opponent and bowed.  His wand was already drawn and as he straightened up he pulled himself into the 'guard' position, but not quite quickly enough – a hex was already whipping itself around his knees and before he knew it, he was on his back and fighting to counter it. 

Pettifer disappeared from his end of the room in a blink and reappeared at Harry's side; a flick of his wand and Harry was disarmed.

"Shall we try again?" he suggested, amused.

"You cheated!" Harry protested, all deference momentarily suspended.

"Not at all.  I merely gave you no opportunity to strike the first blow."

Harry looked up at him, too appreciative of the reasoning to be annoyed.  "Were you a Slytherin, sir?" he asked a little impudently.

Pettifer only chuckled.

 

xXx

 

When, two hours later, Sirius appeared at the door of the ballroom, Mr. Pettifer was just beginning to tire.  Harry, by contrast, was energised although breathing hard and sweating rivers, and he was so intent upon the duel that he didn't notice his godfather until Pettifer deliberately disengaged from the bout.

"Black has come to tell us that we have both had enough for the day," Pettifer said genially, putting up his wand and clapping Harry on the shoulder.  "Eh, Black?  Well, this has been a good starting session."

"Looks more like it's finishing the pair of you," Sirius said, but he was grinning.

"Nonsense!  I haven't had an afternoon's exercise like this since I taught my own sons and granddaughter the duel.  Henry'll make a fine duellist – he's quick to learn and light on his feet."

"Well, that's good to hear.  Is this room suitable for duelling, though?"  Sirius looked around.  "It has some warding – hardly surprising, considering the kind of parties my grandfather threw – but not much.  Kingsley was suggesting we strengthen them tomorrow, if you'll tell us what kind of wards you'd like.  Might as well make use of him and Bill Weasley while they're available."

Pettifer grunted his satisfaction.  "Excellent.  I'll speak to them …."

"Perhaps over tea?  Remus is making a pot as we speak."  Sirius led the way out of the ballroom.  "I was wondering if you'd like to cast your eye over the wine cellar after tea, as well.  Remus and I removed the last of the spiders a short while ago."

"You require my assistance to sort the vinegar from the furniture polish?" Pettifer asked, and he chuckled.  "Very well.  I'll grant you I always had a wish to cast my eye over your father's purchases, if only to discover if they were as dreadful as I suspected.  He spent a great deal of money at the wrong sort of merchants ….  And I've no doubt he drank all the good wines that your grandfather and great-grandfather laid down."

"Probably," Sirius admitted, "although there are some bottles, including a few of brandy, hidden at the very back that look like they might be halfway decent."

Pettifer snorted sceptically but expressed his willingness to investigate all the same.  The three of them walked back through the courtyard and servants' wing to the kitchen, where Harry went to help Remus get out the tea set and cakes while Sirius showed Pettifer through to the sitting room.  A few minutes later Kingsley, Bill and Ron walked in the back door, all of them coated in dust and sweating almost as much as Harry.

"Slacker!" Ron accused Harry cheerfully, when he set eyes on him.  "Nice way to get out of shifting bricks all afternoon, I reckon!"

"Tell you what, next time _you_ can go ten rounds with Mr. Pettifer while I move the bricks," Harry offered, making his friend grin.

"Tell _you_ what – why don't the lot of you nip upstairs and wash?" Remus interjected firmly.  "A nice bunch you all are, to sit down to tea with Mr. Pettifer."

"You're covered in cobwebs!" Harry retorted, but he followed the others up the stairs quickly enough.

Tea was lively, devoted largely to discussions of suitable warding levels both for the ballroom and the workroom in the cellar.  While this was moderately interesting, both Harry and Ron lost interest when Kingsley and Bill both started talking about legal warding levels and Ministry inspectors, and Harry took the opportunity to tell Ron about his duelling lesson with Mr. Pettifer instead.

Ron was a little envious.  "Wish I was doing that," he said.

"Maybe he'll let you join us next time," Harry suggested.  "Besides, when the ballroom's warded, I can show you some of the stuff he was teaching me and we could practice together."

"That'd be good.  Though I reckon we'll spend weeks fixing that workroom."

"We'd better not," Harry retorted.  "I want to look in the library for a start.  Sirius's dad was an Animator and if he left any books about it, I want them."

The rest of the evening was mildly interesting.  They paid a group visit to the wine cellar, where Mr. Pettifer examined the wines and declared the vast majority "fit only for cooks and apothecaries".  As Sirius had noted, however, there were a few very dusty racks at the very back of the cellar which contained what remained of his grandfather's wine and brandy stock, and this clearly necessitated a tasting just so that Pettifer could impart some carefully chosen words of wisdom on the subject both to Sirius (who had a small amount of wine knowledge gleaned during his early teens from his grandfather Mercurius Black) and Harry (who knew nothing and therefore clearly needed to be educated).  Fortunately for Harry, Pettifer was as good at explaining wine as he was at duelling, so it wasn't a lesson wasted.

After that, arrangements were made for Kingsley, Bill and Pettifer to return the following day to discuss and erect suitable wards in the ballroom.  Harry took a reluctant leave of Ron (whom Bill very firmly steered into the Floo), then discovered to his dismay just how much of a workout he'd had that afternoon.  Sirius very kindly didn't laugh at him for being duelled into the ground by a man eighty or ninety years his senior, Remus gave him a relaxing herbal tea to drink, and the pair of them packed him off to bed where it would be no exaggeration to say that he collapsed and slept around the clock.

 

xXx

 

The following day, Kingsley, Bill, Ron and Pettifer returned (fortunately quite late, for Harry was in no hurry to get up that morning) and they all returned to the ballroom, where several hours were spent setting up some very finely tuned wards that would absorb and dissipate magical shocks, followed by others that would disarm any inadvertently lethal curses.  It was not a process that could be hurried, especially as Mr. Pettifer insisted that they should be anchored into the foundations of the house; an idea that made Harry uneasy (wouldn't that put the stability of the house at risk?) until Sirius explained that the foundations were a great deal deeper, older and more stable than the house currently built on them. 

Kingsley, to Harry's mild surprise, almost at once backed out of actually assisting in setting the wards; he candidly admitted that while he could advise on the sort to be used and judge their strength, setting the charms was not one of his strengths.  It was left to Bill and Pettifer to start the process and when it came to embedding the wards into the foundations, Sirius promptly deferred to Harry as the stronger wizard – an admission that privately scared the teenager rather than pleasing him.

All the same it was fascinating, if maddeningly time-consuming.

A framework had to be drawn across the floor in salt and iron filings and five lodestones were placed, one in each corner of the room and one in the centre (Harry made a mental to note to ask Remus later just how he happened to have these particular substances to hand).  Pettifer and Sirius talked Harry through chalking certain arithmantic symbols into the spaces of the framework at one end of the room while Remus and Bill showed Ron at the other.  Setting the actual charms took nearly two hours, even with six of them working in pairs.  Ron proved surprisingly good at catching and pinning the charm-strands Harry cast, an achievement that turned his ears pink with pleasure when his brother praised him for it.

Finally Harry seated himself crossed-legged in the centre of the room before the lodestone and closed his eyes, his wand held loosely in his lap, while Remus, Ron, Sirius, Bill and Pettifer all joined Kingsley just outside the door.

"Remember, Henry," Pettifer said calmly, "gather up _all_ of the charm-strands before drawing them into the knot design we showed you.  Then you may affix it to the foundations."

He made it sound like the easiest thing in the world, Harry thought, but he wasn't sure if it would be at all simple.  Nevertheless, he was determined to give it his best shot.  For several minutes he concentrated on his breathing.  He 'touched' his magic and was relieved to discover that nothing – or no one – appeared to be blocking it.  Then he opened his eyes, raised his wand and said clearly, _"Colligere filum._ "

Magic streamed out of his wand in a steady flow of red filaments, finding each of the charm threads where they were 'tacked' to one of the chalk symbols on the floor, snapping them to the lines of salt and iron, and racing along them at blinding speed until they met the lodestones in each corner of the room.  The result was awe-inspiring; Harry watched, enthralled, as a visible net of charm-threads seemed to swell and build from the framework on the floor, rising up around him, seeking out the wards that were already in place and binding to them, flashing them into renewed life.  It spread out around the walls, snaking across the elaborate mouldings on the ceiling, settling like a luminous spider's web across the walls, floor and windows, and forcing the watchers in the doorway to take a hasty step backwards as the threads crossed even that aperture. 

When it had covered every surface, Pettifer said, "Now anchor it, Henry.  Take your time; this is not a moment to rush."

Harry barely heard him.  He was concentrating on gathering the master threads of the wards that were fastened to the four corner stones and weaving them into the knot Pettifer had shown him.  He was unaware of how long this took, only that it had to be done right the first time or the whole net of charms would collapse and they would have to start again from scratch.  When he finally had the knot 'tied', he forced it into the central lodestone before him and downwards, through the floor, through the cellars, into the stone foundations of the house.  He located one particularly heavy stone that appeared to contain no inner flaws and with a struggle anchored the charms.

He opened his eyes to find himself flat on his back, with Sirius and Ron standing over him.

"Good job!" Sirius told him proudly. 

"That was a corker, mate," Ron added by way of reassurance, and they helped him to sit up. 

The web of charms was no longer visible, although Harry could feel them faintly in the background, like a butterfly-light kiss across his skin.  The lodestones had disintegrated and the salt and iron filings had disappeared entirely, leaving nothing but smudged chalk symbols on the wooden floor.

Kingsley and Bill were testing the wards cautiously while Remus, being of a more practical turn, charmed a dustpan and brush to sweep up the small amount of mess.

Pettifer leaned on his cane and gave Harry a small, respectful bow. 

"Excellent work, Henry my boy.  You are truly your mother's son."

 

xXx

 

Bill and Kingsley left shortly after declaring the wards sound and Mr. Pettifer also began to ready himself to go, declaring that his granddaughter would be most displeased with him if he was late for tea as a couple of friends were visiting.

"I shall return," he told Harry, although his eyes were on Sirius as he said it.  "Black, I intend to take Henry to The Rose House tomorrow for an hour or two.  There are certain family matters he should begin to attend to, and in any case he should familiarise himself with the house and grounds."

Sirius looked at him for a moment.  "Have you asked Dumbledore about this?" he asked finally,

Pettifer's lips twisted wryly.  "Indeed.  He was not overly taken with the notion, but agreed that Henry needs a closer acquaintance with his family's business."

"It's just that there are certain security issues when Harry leaves this house or Hogwarts," Remus put in quietly.

"Of that I am aware.  But he is a man grown and must leave the nest sometime.  The wards on The Rose House are not inconsiderable, and he will have both my protection and that of the House-elves."

"I can look after myself," Harry put in, a little annoyed at the way this conversation was bypassing him as though he wasn't there.

"You have the power to do so, that much is certain," Pettifer said to him directly.  "Nevertheless, the skills, the experience and the mindset that harness the power will only come with time and rigorous practice.  And do not cast off your youth so quickly, I beg you, Henry.  Middle age comes all too quickly as it is.  For the time being, let _us_ fret over your safety and do not concern yourself."

The temptation would have been to laugh at this had Harry not been quite certain that the old man was in earnest.  And since it difficult for him to view Pettifer with anything other than respect, he humoured him and let him have his way with surprising docility.

After Pettifer left, Ron took Harry off to view the cellar workroom, leaving Sirius and Remus to eye each other over the kitchen table.

Sirius gave way first, as usual.  "Should I comment?"

"I don't think you need to," Remus replied, with a laugh in his voice.  "First Maffy, now Pettifer.  Although when I think about it, Maffy wasn't the first at all – _you_ were."

Sirius gave him an odd look.  "What do you mean?"

"Harry's little substitute family, idiot!  He decided some time ago that you must be his substitute father, and it's perfectly obvious that Maffy takes the place of his mother in the absence of any other suitable female.  Now he's clearly decided that Pettifer is a suitable candidate for surrogate grandfather."

"And where does that leave you?" Sirius asked with a gleam in his eye.

"If you say anything like _auntie_ or _wicked stepmother_ , you'll sleep on your own for a week," Remus warned him, amused.  "No, I don't think Harry ever quite got over me being his professor, so I imagine I fall somewhere under the heading of "wise uncle".  As far as Pettifer is concerned, though, it seems to be a mutually beneficial relationship so there's no harm in it."

"I don't know.  You've reminded me enough times not to make the mistake of thinking Harry is James.  I have to wonder if Pettifer doesn't forget that Harry isn't Henry."

"I think the age gap is too great for that to be a serious concern," Remus said.  "I wondered as well, but while I'm sure there's a large dose of nostalgia involved, I'm pretty sure Pettifer understands and respects their differences.  Besides, I was talking to Andromeda the last time she was here and she told me there are rumours of a rift between Pettifer and his eldest son."

"That's an old story," Sirius said at once.  "I'm sure I remember James saying something about it just before Harry was born – Henry told him that Claude was a disappointment to his old man, and that it proved that even the best upbringing couldn't guarantee a child wouldn't go wrong."

"Perhaps Pettifer hopes to do better by Harry," Remus suggested.  "Andromeda seemed to think that the only one of his grandchildren he ever sees is the girl who lives with him, so perhaps he's adopting Harry as much as Harry is adopting him."

"They could both do much worse," Sirius replied soberly.

 

xXx

 

Ron stayed for dinner that evening.  There was a shade of defiance in the way he did this; not at all the full-blown rebellion Sirius and Remus were both expecting him to try at some point, but the way he accepted their invitation to stay suggested he felt he was making a small bid for freedom from his mother's fussing.  It turned out not to be a very dramatic gesture after all – apparently Molly Weasley was busy that evening at a meeting of the Hogwarts Scholarship Society (a group composed mainly of mothers who held fundraising events to support scholarship students) – but it was still a gesture.  He hadn't asked for permission to stay out late.

Sirius suspected he was hoping to stay out even later still, but made no comment.  Both Ron and Harry were seventeen; it was no longer his duty to police their relationship, even had he been inclined to do so, and he liked Ron enough to hope that he kept his nerve and went through with it.  A little rebellion was character-building.

Dinner was dominated entirely by discussion of warding charms, thanks to the exercise in the ballroom and Harry and Ron's subsequent investigation of the workroom in the cellar.  They were both of the opinion that much of the warding could be put back into place without having to re-set it all entirely; Remus sounded a note of caution on this, pointing out the dangers inherent in using weakened or damaged wards, especially when they had originally been set by someone else.  The conversation then turned to the physical rebuilding of the brick lining, and by the time they'd finished dinner and moved out into the garden to enjoy the last of the evening sun, Harry had somehow got onto Animation and duelling and was managing to talk about both subjects simultaneously at broomstick-speed. 

For once it was Ron, rather than Remus, who broke in on the near-monologue by demanding to know whether Harry had bloody well managed to fix his dragon, which sent Harry back indoors to fetch it.

Sirius sagged back onto the grass with a groan.  "Why is he so chatty tonight?  He should be knackered after the workout fixing those wards gave him!"

"At this rate he'll be sleepwalking later."  Remus gave Ron a friendly nudge with his foot.  "You're younger than us.  It's your job to wear him out."

"Okay then!" Ron said, with a sudden grin.

Sirius snorted and looked at the boy.  "How are you getting on with those Animagus books?"

"I've nearly finished volume one," Ron said.  "It's pretty heavy-going."

"Harry said the same thing," Sirius replied.  "Just make sure that you understand what you're reading before you try any of the visualisations etc.  Better to go back over a subject three or four times than to try it out half-cocked and end up getting stuck with flippers or a beak.  When you're ready to try a practical, let me know and I'll see if I can sort something out.  If I can't take you through the first attempts myself, I'll write to McGonagall and she'll work on it with you at school, but don't try it on your own because you need a partner who can reverse the change for you the first couple of times."

Ron looked a little doubtful about this, but had no chance to express his concerns about bothering Professor McGonagall before Harry reappeared carrying his dragon and one of his Animation textbooks.  The dragon was now zebra-striped in dark brown and cream.

"I managed to fix it last night," Harry said, as he dropped down next to Ron.  He spread the wings out carefully.  "See, that joint's working properly now.  And I've worked out how to stop everything flopping about …."  He turned the dragon over and showed them a fine network of threads in the exposed under-parts of the puppet.  "It's sort of like tendons to hold everything tight." 

He spread the dragon out on the grass and pulled out his wand, concentrating and tapping the head lightly.  The process was no longer done in stages, the puppet slowly tightening each joint into life; between one moment and the next the head and tail came up and the wings drew back as the back legs bunched and pushed the whole body up off the ground.  A couple of quick, flapping downward strokes and the dragon was up in the air, graceful and effortless.

Sirius sat up, impressed.  "That's brilliant," he said, following the swooping dragon with his eyes.  "You've come a long way from cardboard cut-outs."

Pleased, Harry brought the dragon down to earth again.  He couldn't resist showing off a little by bringing it into land properly and having it fold its wings back fussily while pacing up and down in the grass.

"I thought I'd try something a bit different next time," he said idly, leaving through his book.  "Maybe an owl.  Only I was thinking about using that old feather duster and I don't know if that counts as _mortal remains_ according to the law."

"I don't see how it could," Remus said, frowning.  "If it did, no one would ever own a Self-Dusting Duster or Plump-Up Pillow.  Owls and other birds must shed their own weight in feathers over a lifetime."

"If you were using the bones of a bird, that would be different," Sirius added.

Harry made a face.  "Wouldn't want to.  How creepy would that be?  Like taxidermy, only worse."

"What's taxidermy?" Ron asked him curiously, but it was Remus who answered.

"The practice of stuffing dead animals and mounting them in a glass case to make artwork.  You don't see it much these days, except in old objects in antique shops and so on.  It's a highly restricted practice and it's forbidden to make the subject move, which limits the interest for wizard folk."

Harry looked up, interested.  "I don't think Muggles do it much nowadays either, except in museum displays.  Remus, are there any wizard museums?"

"You mean like the British Museum?"  Remus shook his head.  "No, not in terms of archaeology and so on.  Historical artefacts are almost exclusively kept in private collections, unfortunately.  If you know that some important document or artefact exists and you want to examine it, you have to write to the owner and ask to see it."

"But how would you know if someone had something?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"The Ministries in most countries oblige owners to register the contents of their collections.  Theoretically, every witch or wizard owning significant historical documents or artefacts is obliged to submit their collection to random Ministry inspections.  Needless to say, it's a very patchy process and in the case of a lot of high-ranking owners – like Lucius Malfoy, for example – it's widely acknowledged that only a very small proportion of the collection will ever be disclosed.  It's not as though the Ministry can order an Auror search of a property just to see if something is being hidden.  They have to have proof first and then it's chancy whether they'd find it anyway."

"People always know, though," Sirius put in.  "There's no point in owning something truly spectacular, no matter how illegal, if you can't show it off or brag about it.  So there are plenty of underground networks that pass the information around that so-and-so has this, that or the other."  He smiled reminiscently.  "James and I were put on illegal artefact tracing when we joined the Aurors.  Best couple of years on the job I ever had – you wouldn't believe some of the stuff we found!  And the things we had to do to trace it …."

"I've been wondering what's hidden away in _this_ house," Remus remarked.  "We haven't come across anything particularly interesting yet, and that surprises me given your family's reputation, Sirius."

"It won't be on display, Moony!  It's probably in one of the hidden rooms upstairs, if it's anywhere."

Harry could feel Ron's eyes on the back of his neck; undoubtedly the redhead was thinking about a certain hidden room they were both acquainted with, but he still wasn't ready to talk about it to Sirius.  The very idea of describing the sculpture of Pan and the goat made Harry's neck go hot with embarrassment.

"Did your dad collect stuff?" he made himself ask casually.

"If he did, it was probably books," Sirius replied.  "Books and women were his main vices.  The one to worry about was Grandpapa.  He had expensive and exotic tastes."

"Well, we'll have a look at the library in due course," Remus said, and he stifled a yawn.  "Sorry, gang – I think I've had enough for the day."

"Yeah, I'm going to turn in too," Sirius agreed, getting to his feet.  "You two – don't stay out here too long, okay?  Don't forget you're going to The Rose House with Pettifer tomorrow, Harry.  And lock the kitchen door behind you when you come in."

When they'd gone inside, Harry rolled onto his back in the grass and turned his head to look at Ron.  They stared at each other and Harry began to grin.

"Want to stay over tonight?" he asked.

Ron pinked up a little but grinned back.  "Do you reckon they'd mind?"

"If they did, Remus would have shoved you into the Floo already.  Stay.  Please?"

Ron's grin became more confident.  "What's it worth?"

"I was thinking of taking a bath …." Harry began casually.

"I'm staying," Ron assured him.

 

xXx

 

Harry's bathroom was small compared to the overall dimensions of the tower; it had been portioned off from whatever rooms that were on the 'house' side of the wall when Sirius and Remus had turned the tower into living space.  But it was relatively modern in its design, with the usual washbasin and toilet and a deep, surprisingly wide bathtub that also had a shower and curtain fitted over it.  The walls and floor were tiled – the walls in a creamy marled pattern and the floor in warm, glazed terracotta – and there were candle sconces for lighting, although now that Harry was of age he could also use wizard lights.  The only downside was that the room had just one small and very high-set window which allowed inadequate daylight to penetrate, but that mostly wasn't a problem.

The fat candles gave off a pleasant glow, so Harry lit them and set the taps running on the bath.  He was suddenly acutely aware that he'd done something the day before – he wasn't sure what – to make his whole body ache, especially his back and shoulders.  Now, thanks to the additional strain of setting the wards in the ballroom, he was suffering for it.

"Can magic make you stiff?" he asked Ron, trying to reach over his own shoulder to rub a persistent ache away.

The redhead snorted.  "I reckon there might be a few things in that room we found that could do the trick!"

"Prat!" Harry told him, amused.  " _Stiff_ would be the least of it!  Shit, my neck hurts – "

Ron slapped his hand away and removed Harry's glasses for him, folding them neatly and putting them out of harm's way.  "Get your t-shirt off," he instructed.

Harry hurried to comply, although dragging the shirt over his head made him groan with discomfort.  To his gratitude, Ron at once began to knead his neck and shoulders firmly.

"Looks like you could do with a hot bath."  Ron's voice was cautious.  "Are you sure you don't just want to soak yourself and go to bed?"

"Are you kidding me?  I don't care if I've got a broken collarbone or something, I just want _you_."

"Pushy, pushy …."

"Get your togs off and I'll show you how pushy I can be."

"Stroppy, demanding git."  Ron tickled a sensitive spot between Harry's shoulders and chuckled when he twitched.  "Who's the prefect here?"

"Except you're not anymore, are you?  Besides, what would you do, take points from me if I'm a bad boy?"

" _Give_ you points more like.  Give you something anyway."

"That's more like it."  Harry turned around to help Ron pull his own shirt off, then spent a few moments enjoyably reacquainting himself with the freckles on his neck and upper chest. 

Ron's breath hitched at the attention.  "Shouldn't – shouldn't we silence the door?"

"Oh yeah …."  Harry cast the charm over Ron's shoulder, then he dropped his wand on their discarded t-shirts and turned his attention back to his friend.  "Mmm … jeans."

"Bath's nearly full," Ron muttered, as they helped each other out of their jeans and underwear.

"Hm?  Oh …."  Harry waved a hand and the taps cut off. 

For a moment his friend considered saying something about this almost alarmingly casual use of wandless magic, but he decided it was the wrong time to mention it.  There were more important things going on, such as Harry licking his way down Ron's chest and stomach towards his bellybutton.  It was a sight he wanted to savour properly for it still struck him with wonder; back in March, when Harry had first approached him, Ron hadn't even been able to mentally put together an idea of what two blokes did together, but now ….

Now Harry's hands were holding his hips and he was nuzzling the line of rust-coloured hair that led from Ron's bellybutton to his groin, and Ron was already so hard that his erection was pushing against the underside of the other youth's chin.  He had to reach out and steady himself against the bathroom wall with one hand; the other, almost without him thinking about it, went to the back of Harry's head, and Harry looked up at him, his green eyes sparkling with mischief and lust in the candlelight.

"I thought you were aching," Ron managed in a hoarse whisper.

"I am."  And Harry sat back on his heels so that Ron could see his own erection jutting from the tangle of dark curls at his crotch.  "I reckon you're aching a bit more right now though."  His right hand went to cup and fondle Ron's balls warmly and abruptly he leaned forward and licked Ron's cock from root to tip, making the redhead cry out.  "Good?" he asked wickedly.

"M-more than good," Ron panted. 

"Want me to keep going?"




God.  The idea made Ron's head spin. But –   "No."

Harry's face fell ludicrously.  "No?"

Ron managed a weak grin.  "No, you prat!  If – if you keep doing _that_ – I won't be able to last.  I want to have a bath with you first!"

Harry stood up in a hurry.  "Come on then!"

The tub was quite big but it was still going to be a tricky business getting two of them in there without slopping water and foam everywhere.

"You get in first," Harry told Ron.  "Your legs are longer ….  If you sit back I can slide in front of you."

"You just want me to rub your shoulders again," Ron joked, but he did as he was told. 

The water was very hot, just on the right side of scalding, and he sighed as he settled back against the warmed porcelain.  This arrangement definitely had its benefits, he thought, getting a good view of Harry's rear as the other boy climbed into the tub.  He couldn't resist giving one cheek a squeeze; Harry squawked and sat down in a hurry, and the water surged up over the side of the tub with a great splash, making Ron laugh.

"You arse!" Harry protested, laughing and slapping at his friend's hand where it lay on the side of the tub.

"More like _your_ arse!  Here, give us another squeeze – "

"Gerroff!"

It turned into a very slippery wrestling match, which was actually a lot of fun, although they did get a lot more water on the floor ….  Ron wasn't quite sure when Harry twisted around to face him, that wasn't important, but he did realise that the best way to get a grip on the smaller boy so that they could snog more easily was to grab hold of his rear with both hands and hold him in place.  Harry wasn't complaining at all though, for it just so happened that this particular position was also really good for rubbing their cocks together – Ron groaned into Harry's mouth, squeezing his rear restlessly, and Harry's grip on his shoulders was almost painful.  He nipped at the redhead's bottom lip gently and thrust against him with increasing urgency until Ron suddenly stiffened and let out a choking cry; but Harry didn't stop moving until he came himself with a shout.

"Aw, _fuck_ ," Ron mumbled into the curve of his neck, as they sagged against each other and the water settled into slow ripples around them.

"Reckon that comes next," Harry said contentedly.


	10. Chapter 10

The next day started on an off note; an owl arrived carrying a Howler for Ron from his mother well before he and Harry were up and about.  The owl couldn't breach the protective wards on Harry's tower bedroom, however.  It was forced to drop the Howler in the kitchen, where Remus was puttering about making tea, with the result that it exploded and the entire household knew the exact measure of Molly Weasley's ire within moments.

"She's lost it," Ron said, very shaken and wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts he'd hastily pulled on after falling out of bed at the noise.

"Yes, I do believe she has," Remus said acidly.  He'd endured the full brunt of the Howler's shrieks about Ron's irresponsibility, his parents' sleepless night worrying about where he was, his mother's certainty that she would be burying her youngest son before his eighteenth birthday, and the perfidy of unspecified persons who allowed him to do exactly as he pleased on their property without reference to the wishes and concerns of his family.  She had finished up with a darkly worded statement about how she had no idea where Ron was, but he'd better be home in time for breakfast or else.

"How did she know where to send the Howler if she doesn't know where he is?" Harry asked interestedly.  "And if she was that worried about him why didn't she Floo call us last night?"

"Excellent questions," Sirius said grimly.  "I'm not having this kind of thing happen every time Ron cuts loose …."  He stalked over to the fireplace and took down the jar of Floo powder.  "You two – go into the sitting room, please.  Moony, cover your ears.  There's going to be more shouting."

Harry grabbed Ron's arm and dragged him into the sitting room doorway, but paused there, listening as Sirius threw a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace and said "The Burrow!" clearly.  A few moments later this was followed by a darkly sarcastic "Good morning, Molly!  Thank you _so_ much for the wake-up call – the roof needed a few of the damaged slates knocking off it."

Harry grinned and retreated further into the sitting room.  "Excellent!"

But Ron was less amused.  "I reckon she's been waiting to have a go at him," he said, and his shoulders hunched a bit.

"It'll take more than your mum yelling at him to worry Sirius."  Harry stared at him.  "You don't regret staying, do you?"

"No, of course not!  It's just … well."  Ron's ears began to turn pink.  "Maybe I should have sent a note or something."

"Yeah, right.  And she would have been over here five minutes later to take you home."

Muffled sounds of an argument drifted in from the kitchen.  Apparently Sirius was getting a few things off his chest.

"I'll have to go home and get clean clothes anyway," Ron said, trying to sound cheerful about it.  He forced a little laugh.  "She'll probably tell me I have to wash my own stuff after this!"

"Yeah?  Well I've washed stacks of laundry before," Harry said.  "I can always give you a hand.  Besides, I don't get it – she _must_ have known where you were!  Wouldn't Bill have told her?"

"He doesn't live at The Burrow," Ron said.  "He's got mates he stays with in London.  And he told me the other day that I was too old for him to cover for me when I did something stupid, so maybe he just decided not to say anything to her."

"You reckon it was stupid to stay?" Harry asked, trying to keep his tone even.

Ron gave him a startled look.  "Not like that, idiot!  It's just that the arguments might be a bit crap, you know?"

"What can she do to you?  You're seventeen."

"She's my mum, Harry.  It's not like having a bust-up with a teacher or something, where you have a detention and get it over with - "

He was cut short by Remus walking in.  He raised his brows at Ron. 

"Are you ready to deal with this?" he asked conversationally.  "Because I think it's turning into a bigger row than you were planning for.  By the time Sirius and Molly have finished with each other, I can't imagine she'll be in a very sweet mood."

Ron began to look very stressed.

"This is incredibly stupid," Harry said, looking from one to the other.

"No, Harry, it isn't."  Remus turned to look at him sharply.  "This is how normal families behave.  Don't treat it with contempt just because you don't understand it."

Harry blinked.  " _Normal?_   What's normal about someone screaming about something she could have fixed with a Floo call last night?"

"You're missing the point entirely," Remus said coolly.  "If your parents were alive now, Sirius would be having the same shouting match with _your_ mother.  It's a maternal thing, and the fact that Ron is seventeen doesn't change that.  His being seventeen is part of the problem.  And we've already had the conversation about family responsibility and what _you_ are going to have to learn to put up with.  Haven't we?"

Harry shut up, but he looked angry and inside he felt just a little … something he couldn't quite put a name to.  Frightened – lost – cheated?

After a minute or two the shouting from the kitchen stopped and Sirius walked through to join them.  He looked frustrated and annoyed.

"I have a message for you," he told Ron.  "You're still expected to join them for breakfast and church, and since that's happening now you'd better get dressed and hop it."  Ron was looking anxious though, so he added, "It's okay.  Right now she's more pissed off at me than she is at you.  All the same, you'd better be prepared for a pretty frosty atmosphere for a while.  This isn't something that'll blow over in five minutes, I'm afraid."

Looking resigned, Ron thanked him and headed for the stairs.

"You'd better get dressed too," Sirius said to Harry.  "Busy morning ahead."

But Harry wasn't ready to let it go.  "What did she say?" he demanded.

"None of your business," Sirius told him bluntly.

"I'm not a kid – "

"Then stop acting like one."  Sirius had limits which had already been passed that morning.  "Being an adult doesn't give you the right to know about my private conversations with other people.  Now if you don't mind, my morning has already had a shitty start and I'd like to prepare for whatever other horrors are in store for me by at least having a decent breakfast.  Get dressed or don't get dressed; you're the adult, it's up to you.  But for God's sake leave me alone for the next half an hour or I won't be responsible for what happens."

He turned on his heel and stalked from the room, and after a moment Remus raised his brows wryly and followed him, leaving Harry to glare after them.

 

xXx

 

Ron was fully dressed when Harry went back to his room, and just checking the pockets of his robe to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything.

"I'll be back after church, okay?" he said.

Harry made a face and sat down on the window seat.  "Sure about that, are you?"

It was a struggle, but Ron managed not to retort in kind.  He wasn't feeling particularly happy himself after the morning's excitement, but something in Harry's expression told him that his friend was half-hoping to start a quarrel and he was determined not to do it.

"I will – _really_."  He gave way to the goading just a touch though.  "She doesn't run my life, Harry, but I can't just ignore her either."

"Why not?"  Harry's tone was studiedly flippant, but Ron caught an odd note in his voice.

"She's my mum.  She spent seventeen years bringing me up, she's got a right to respect."

It didn't come as much surprise to him that Harry should push this consideration aside.  "Yeah, but what can she do to you?  Really?"

"I live in her house.  Think about it."

"So move out.  Get a flat somewhere – hey, we could get a place together.  It'd be a laugh."  The tone was more flippant than ever, but Ron was now convinced that Harry was testing him somehow.

"And what about school in September?"

Harry shrugged.  "It's not too late to quit."

"Nah, I don't think so, mate."  Ron looked at Harry and didn't know whether to laugh or be annoyed with him.  Probably either would be a bad idea; Harry was out of sorts and looking for a target to vent his feelings on, but there was no reason for Ron to give him one.  "I reckon that'd be running away, don't you?  I thought the point of all this stuff we've been doing was so we can face up to things."

"Who said anything about Voldemort?"

"Yeah, well it's not _all_ about him.  You can't just run away from everything that pisses you off – you'd spend most of your life running else.  And not going home because Mum's pissed off would be a bit stupid."

"So what was last night?" Harry demanded.

Ron suppressed a sigh.  "That's different.  It's one thing to stay out late when I feel like it and another to go home when she wants me too.  You know?"  But Harry clearly didn't understand this, and Ron gave up.  "Never mind.  I'll see you in an hour or so, okay?"

When he was gone, Harry slowly got dressed and went downstairs.  There was no sign of Sirius or Remus, so he got his own breakfast and ate it at the kitchen in table in solitary dudgeon.

 

xXx

 

Remus had been boiling eggs for breakfast when the whole drama of the Howler erupted, and in the intervening period the eggs had ended up hard-boiled.  Fortunately, since even wizards hadn't come up with a solution for overcooked food yet, neither he nor Sirius had a problem with this and so the pair of them sat on the overgrown stone steps leading down from the terrace in front of the ballroom windows and ate eggs and toast in the only patch of sunlight that reached that side of the house first thing in the morning.

"Reckon I'm going to get a cold shoulder from Harry for saying that to him?" Sirius asked at length.

"Probably."  Remus munched on an egg for a few moments, contemplating the untidy gardens.  "I wouldn't worry about it.  Pettifer's getting him out of our hair a bit later, and that'll give everyone a chance to cool down a bit."

"Lucky old Pettifer," Sirius muttered.  "Although I suppose Harry'll put it on hold while he's with the old man, and save his bad mood for us."

"Everyone has a bad day, Padfoot.  You didn't think we'd get through the summer without a few stroppy moments, did you?  Compared to last year, it's been a breeze."  When Sirius didn't comment, he continued, "What did Molly have to say?  Or shouldn't I ask you that either?"

Sirius breathed a laugh but there was very little humour in it.  "Nothing I wasn't expecting.  Mostly a load of twaddle about how she hadn't slept a wink with worrying where her baby was."

"Harry has a point there," Remus remarked.  "If she was that worried, why on earth didn't she just Floo-call us?  She must have known where he was all day, so it wouldn't take a genius to guess he was still here."

"That wasn't her point, was it?" Sirius said acidly.  "Don't worry, that was just a smokescreen – her real beef was about what he was up to and with whom."

"Most mothers would assume that there's a reasonably innocent explanation if their son is sleeping over at the home of a male friend," Remus remarked dryly, "especially if the male friend's parents or guardians are in the house.  I don't think anyone ever got the wrong end of the stick when you crashed at any of our houses – and my parents weren't clued in about us until my brother dropped in at our flat and found there was only one bedroom and one bed."

"Oh, Molly knows what's going on, believe me.  She just doesn't want to say it herself.  She wants someone else to put it into words of one syllable, so she can deny any son of hers would do such a thing and then blame a whole raft of other people for corrupting him."

"Is that what she did this morning?"

"Of course she did."  Sirius made an abortive gesture towards his pocket and gave an annoyed exclamation.  "At this rate I'm going to take up smoking again.  That's the second or third time I've gone looking for a fag!"

Remus grinned in spite of himself.  "Don't you dare!  Here – I'll peel you another egg instead.  So what did she actually say?"

"It was a masterpiece really."  Sirius tried to grin, but found it difficult.  He'd been honest when he told Ron that his mother with angrier with Sirius himself than her son, but that didn't mean the boy would have an easy time of it this morning.  "I don't think she mentioned the word _homosexual_ or any variation of it even once, but she made it quite clear that she thought Harry had nefarious designs on her little boy – "

"Not without justification," Remus interjected, amused.

" – And that you and I were to blame because we'd taught Harry that being _peculiar_ , her word, not mine, was normal.  She gave me a comprehensive ear-bashing about the damage she thinks we've done to him – oh yeah, you'd have liked that bit, because she went off at a tangent about how Harry was a sensitive child with 'problems' who was irrevocably damaged by insensitive Muggles and a complete lack of understanding from just about every adult he ever came into contact with.  His character has been ruined by neglect _and_ overindulgence – " Remus let out a snort of laughter and nearly choked on a crumb of toast, "and she thinks it'll be a miracle if he doesn't turn into some kind of louche young playboy with too much money and no concept of self-restraint.  And no son of hers is going to get dragged into orgies of drinking, drug-taking and sexual misconduct if she has anything to say about it."

"She's a bit late!" Remus said, laughing.  "If those tall tales Bill gave us when we were at The Rose House have any basis in truth, she's behind the fair by some years!"

"Yeah, it'll probably seem funny to me later," Sirius said with a sigh.  "But right now I'm having a hard time laughing, because she as good as said that we're perverts, that we've turned Harry into a pervert, and now he's trying to do the same to Ron."

"Which is a complete load of twaddle," Remus said sharply.  "Sirius, I don't know about you, but I realised back at Easter that Molly was likely to be a problem where Ron and Harry are concerned, and the truth is that it's _Ron's_ problem, unfortunate as that may be.  All we can do is reassure Harry that he's not the unnatural monster she makes him out to be and offer support to the pair of them if Ron decides to stand up to her.  Which I hope he does, because I can't imagine how Harry will take it if he knuckles under."

" _I_ hope he doesn't knuckle under, too," Sirius said.

"So what's the problem?  It's unpleasant but it's not as though this is anything new."

"I suppose I hoped Harry wouldn't have to go through the kind of ranting and raving you and I had to put up with," Sirius admitted.  "Molly must have realised at Easter that they weren't just friends, Moony, so why the sudden fuss?"

"Because at Easter she was still able to _fool_ herself that they were just friends," Remus said after a moment, and he looked down at the remains of his breakfast with a wry smile.  "The same way that my mother was able to fool herself that we were just flatmates until my bloody idiot brother charged in where he wasn't invited and went raving back to Mum and Dad about how disgusting it was.  People are wilfully blind where their loved ones are concerned, Sirius, until they're forced to face the facts."

There was a long pause, then Sirius sighed again and gathered himself to stand up.

"Oh well, here we go again …."

 

xXx

 

Church was a sullen event.

Harry trailed Sirius and Remus to the front rows (now that he was seventeen and formally acknowledged as the head of his family, he was expected to sit in solitary splendour in the Potter Family pew across the aisle from his godparents) and tried not to notice that Mrs. Weasley was giving him the evil eye from two rows behind them.  Mr. Weasley sat next to her, looking worn and tired, while they were accompanied only by Ron and Ginny.  Ron was looking almost as worn as his father; Ginny didn't seem to know whether to mimic her mother's frown or giggle.  Harry decided it would be better to pay attention to his prayer book and achieved this, albeit with some difficulty.  Afterwards he had a Confirmation Class with Father Marius that centred largely on the mystery of faith, something which Harry tackled with the greatest of difficulty for he couldn't help thinking that the mysteries of his own life were enough to be going on with, without having to ponder anything more metaphysical on top of that.

When he Apparated back to Black Manor with Sirius – unsure whether he felt more like a potential murder victim being bodyguarded or a child being shepherded – it was to find Hermione Granger walking hesitantly around the side of the house to the kitchen door.  She was dressed in jeans and a surprisingly old and worn-looking Gryffindor Quidditch team shirt, with her hair pulled back into a single braid; a look that suited her, softening her usually starched-up and pristine school prefect persona.

"Hullo!" Sirius said, surprised.  "Where did you come from?  How did you end up around the other side of the house?"

Hermione looked self-conscious as she made her way over to them.  "I walked up the drive," she explained, gesturing vaguely behind her.  "It's very overgrown, isn't it?"

"Walked up the – what on earth for?  Why didn't you Floo in from The Burrow?"

"Oh, I haven't been there today."  She reddened a little.  "I hope you don't mind, but I sort of invited myself over – to help out, if you want.  There's not much for me to do at home unless I help Mum and Dad at their surgery, and it's closed on Sundays anyway.  I did something a bit stupid, though.  I thought I'd Apparate over and I forgot that your wards would probably stop me, so I ended up outside the hedge at the bottom of the drive."

Harry frowned, but Sirius grinned.  "You're lucky the wards didn't decide to toss you into a trap spell!  But you're certainly welcome – the more the merrier."

"Did you really walk up the driveway?" Harry demanded.  "Didn't anything make a grab for you?  I've been getting lectures about stuff in the undergrowth ever since I came to live here."  He shot Sirius an accusing look, which his godfather ignored.

"I did see a few odd-looking things," Hermione admitted.  "I don't suppose it could _really_ have been a Quintaped – don't they live on the Isle of Drear? – but it certainly looked like one.  Although it would have attacked me if it was, I suppose.  And there was something that looked like a tortoise with six legs.  But Mr. Black, why does a magical mansion have a driveway at all?  Wizards don't drive cars or have horses, do they?"

"Get Harry to show you the coach-house," Sirius advised her, and Hermione's eyes widened.

"There are _coaches?_ "

"Not exactly what you'd call coaches, I think, but you'll see."

Taking that as an unsubtle hint, Harry stumped off to get changed and put his prayer book away.  He was deliberately slow about it, but Hermione was waiting patiently for him in the kitchen when he finally went downstairs again.  Sirius and Remus were nowhere to be seen.

"Goodness, you look really cross," she remarked.  "I suppose Ron isn't here yet?"

"Doesn't look like it, does it?"

"Have you had a fight with him?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

Harry wondered if she was being deliberately tactless; something about the look in her eyes suggested she was.  For that reason alone he tried to rein in his temper, since he had no desire to talk about the Ron Situation with her.

"What do you want, Granger?"

"To help out with your house, extraordinary as that might seem to you."  Hermione tilted her head to one side consideringly.  "Your godfather said you'd show me the coach-house," she reminded him.

Harry raised a brow at her.  "And you'd want to see it - why?"

"It's interesting – don't you think it's interesting?  I mean, doesn't it seem odd to _you_ that a wizard house has a driveway?"

Harry shrugged.  "Not really.  Wizards don't exclusively use brooms, Apparition and portkeys, you know.  They adapt all sorts of things, like Sirius did with his motorbike, and the Ministry even has special cars – they sent one to take me to King's Cross the year Sirius broke out of Azkaban."

"Mr. Weasley made an old Ford Anglia fly," Hermione admitted.  "It's not exactly usual though, is it?"

"Depends on what you call 'usual'," Harry said.  He dug his hands into his pockets and strolled to the door.  "Come on, then."

"What do you call usual then?" Hermione asked, while he led the way out to the coach-house.

"I don't," he replied shortly.  "Why, do you?"

Her brow furrowed; she was taking the flippant question quite seriously.  "I suppose I still think things like cars and bicycles are normal, but that's mostly because I don't own a broom and we can't be connected to the Floo network.  I don't even Apparate in front of my parents, because it makes them nervous when I just disappear."

That was interesting.  Harry tended to assume that his Muggle relatives were unusual in their aversion to magic, but it hadn't occurred to him to wonder exactly how the Muggle families of people like Hermione might feel about it.  As she attended Hogwarts presumably they accepted her abilities but 'acceptance', he knew, covered a broad spectrum of reactions.  Inasmuch as they had been compelled by fear of Dumbledore to give Harry houseroom, even the Dursleys could be said to 'accept' magic, no matter how little they liked it.

"Do they mind you going to Hogwarts?" he asked, as they crunched their way along the gravel path.

Hermione didn't pretend to misunderstand the question, which was gratifying.

"I'm sure they would have preferred it if I was an ordinary Muggle girl studying for A Levels right now," she replied.  "But they're proud of my achievements and they support me.  The only thing they worry about is what I'll do when I leave school.  I had to tell them a bit about You-Know-Who – I mean Voldemort – and they worry that I'll be at risk if the war gets any nastier.  And if something happens that means I have to leave the wizarding world – "

"Such as?" Harry broke in, frowning.

She looked at him for a moment, before saying quietly, "Such as Voldemort winning or even just a change of government that's less – less sympathetic to Muggleborns.  They worry that if that happens, I won't have any Muggle qualifications and that would make it very hard for me to get a job.  But I don't worry about that," she continued more briskly. "If the worst came to the worst I could always take an Open University degree or something.

"I suppose that's not a big concern for you," she added, as Harry unlatched the coach-house doors and pulled one open.  "I mean, you're a half-blood but you're a member of one of the First Families and have a seat on the Wizengamot.  And you're rich, of course.  At least, that's what I've heard."

"They'd have a hard time getting rid of me," was Harry's rather cryptic response. 

Then he pulled the other coach-house door open and morning sunlight fell on the array of odd vehicles that had belonged to various generations of the Black family.  Hermione was delighted.

"They really are coaches!" she said, examining the first one she saw which looked a bit like a fat teapot without a handle or spout.  "What on earth would pull them?  Surely not horses?"

"Maybe they did.  There are stacks of paintings here and at my house that show people riding horses."  Harry considered the question.  "Wizards like flight, though, so perhaps it was Thestrals or even hippogriffs.  Or those flying horses the headmistress of Beauxbatons uses."

"That doesn't explain these car-type things, though, does it?  I can't imagine them flying ….  Goodness, that one over there looks like one of the first railway engines.  And _this_ one looks like something the Addams Family would drive."

Harry's interest was gradually tweaked and he joined in with her speculation on methods for making the vehicles move.  Practical attempts failed, though – most of the 'cars' appeared to be experimental models that had never worked in the first place, although as Hermione pointed out, without more information on how they had been intended to move in the first place this was mere speculation. 

They had better luck with the ones that looked like coaches.  Most of them were clearly intended to be pulled by something, although it wasn't always clear from the harnesses exactly what sort of creature that might be.  However plain each coach might seem from the outside, when the two of them climbed inside it was to find luxurious upholstery and considerably more space than might be expected from the exterior appearance.

"This one must have been the limousine of its time," Hermione said, laughing when Harry discovered a little lid under one quilted velvet cushion that hid a rack full of crystal decanters and a tarnished silver biscuit barrel.  There were only two seats, although they were wide and incredibly comfortable.

"I might just move my stuff in here and use it as a bedroom," Harry commented.

"I think someone already did – " And Hermione amused him very much by pulling a pair of frilly bloomers out from behind another cushion.  She held them up, giggling.  "Perhaps this was a wedding carriage!"

"You never know with Sirius's relatives."  Harry stared at the underwear, unsure whether to laugh or be appalled.  "What are those like?!  How could any woman wear them?"

"They were probably meant to be titillating," Hermione said, struggling to keep a straight face as she held them up.  The bloomers certainly had some unusual features.  "I think this bit of lacing at the back is a giveaway ….  They do look uncomfortable, don't they?  Imagine the dress the witch must have been wearing at the time!  She probably had a corset and a thousand petticoats to deal with as well.  Do you know, Ginny was telling me about witches' fashions and apparently corsets and bloomers were a compulsory part of the Hogwarts school uniform for girls until Dumbledore became headmaster.  There was even a different Quidditch kit for female players, even though professional players have always worn the same kit as the men."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked curiously.

Hermione folded the bloomers up neatly.  "There was some kind of morality clause included in the dress code at the beginning of the nineteenth century," she explained matter-of-factly.  "It's in _Hogwarts: A History_ , actually, although it's only about three lines – I had to find another book about the history of amateur Quidditch to find the whole story.  The Board of Governors was entirely composed of members of the First Families back then, and they were worried about their daughters mixing with lower class boys.  There was even an attempt to change to completely segregated Houses, but that was foiled by the castle itself – you know it changes the shape and size of the dormitories according to how the first years are sorted each year?  That's part of the Founders' magic from when it was built.  Well, it wouldn't cooperate with the segregation plans, and in any case no one knew how to make the Sorting Hat comply either.  There was quite a row about it, with a small faction demanding that the Sorting Hat be abandoned, but the traditionalists won on that occasion.  But the reformists made a big enough fuss that there was a change in the dress code, and the girls had to wear ridiculous costumes for Quidditch – I'll show you the book if you like."

"Why do we never hear about interesting stuff like that in History of Magic?" Harry demanded.

"Probably because Professor Binns was still alive in those days and he's one of the teachers who supported the segregation plans," she replied sourly.  "Explains a lot, doesn't it?"

Harry snorted and flopped back against the cushions.  "Well, I'd offer you a drink or a biscuit," he said at length, "but there don't seem to be any left, so do you want to get some lemonade or something?"

"Not right now, thanks."  Hermione gave him a serious look.  "Have you had a row with Ron?  Because you looked like you might have done something like that when I arrived."

Harry wondered what kind of expression he'd been wearing if she thought that.  Clearly he was slipping and that was something he needed to be wary of, since it was only a few weeks now until they all went back to school.  He couldn't afford to let the mask drop in front of the other Slytherins.

"We didn't have a row," he said finally.  "His mother sent a Howler this morning, that's all."

"Why did she do that?"

"Because he stayed overnight and she didn't like it."

"No … I don't suppose she did," Hermione agreed.  She bit her lip, considering him, and apparently decided to take the plunge.  "I don't think you should take it personally, Harry.  I don't think she dislikes you or anything like that.  It's just that … well, Mrs. Weasley is quite a traditional sort of mother and obviously she wants all her children to get married and have children like she did.  But she also rather likes to be in control, and things haven't really worked out the way she wanted.  She's proud of Bill and Charlie for having good jobs, but it makes her uneasy that they both have to work in places that are so far away, and Percy – I expect you know about Percy and the Ministry last year.  He's back at home now, but things haven't been quite the same and Mrs. Weasley's very afraid that he could walk out again.  And Fred and George!  She definitely doesn't approve of what they're doing, even though they're making so much money with the joke shop business.  And then, of course, there's Voldemort on top of everything else and you – well, you must look like a rather risky person to be around.  I think as a mother she's sorry for you because you're an orphan, but she's also Ron's mother and the fact that Voldemort's after you makes her afraid for him.  Do you see?"

"I get all of that," Harry said rather impatiently.  "I got all of that before we were even friends!  What I don't get is how she was screaming and ranting about how afraid she was last night when he never went home, but it took her till this morning to call us and find out where he was!  She knew he was here all along, so why didn't she just Floo-call last night?"

"I expect Mr. Weasley wouldn't let her," Hermione said, and Harry stared.

"What?!"

"I expect he stopped her last night _because_ they both knew where Ron was, but that just gave her all night to stew about it and she sent the Howler this morning because she was too angry to stop and think about it.  Mr. Weasley – he's, well, more _sensible_ than she is.  People don't always notice that, though, because Mrs. Weasley always seems like she's in charge."

"So you're saying that Mr. Weasley _doesn't_ mind?"

"No, I'm not saying that.  I don't know how he feels about the two of you being together," she said patiently.  "But I think he's more pragmatic.  He knows they can't really stop Ron doing what he wants, but Mrs. Weasley hasn't come to terms with that yet.  It's part of being a mother, I think, to not really accept that your children have grown up.  And Ron's her youngest son."

Harry considered this.  "Remus said it was something to do with him being seventeen," he said. 

"That's what he meant, I expect," Hermione said, nodding.  "That it's all about control.  Ron's growing out of her control and she's having a hard time dealing with it because he'll always be her baby to her, you see.  Perhaps I'm wrong – perhaps it wasn't Mr. Weasley stopping her calling last night.  Perhaps she realised that she couldn't stop Ron staying if he was determined to do it, but she sent the Howler because she couldn't _not_ do something to show how she felt.  It would have looked very odd if she hadn't done anything," she pointed out.

"I don't get any of it," Harry said moodily.  "Remus said that it's how normal families work, but that doesn't make any sense to me at all."

"That's because your experience of families is very different," Hermione said gently.  "I don't know what your Muggle relatives were like, but Ron's said things that make me think they – well, that they weren't very kind to you."

Harry offered no comment on this.  He had no desire to explain to Hermione just how far from 'kind' the Dursleys really were.

"And now you're living with your godparents and it's pretty far from a traditional family life, from what I can see," she continued.  "I think they've treated you a bit like a mini-adult since you moved in here."

Harry thought about some of his clashes with Sirius (and, to a lesser degree, with Remus) since he'd come to live at the Manor, and snorted a little.  "Not quite!"

"That's a matter of opinion.  I think you're allowed quite a lot of license compared to most teenagers – not in a bad way, but it's still a different set of rules for you.  I think if your Mum and Dad had raised you you'd understand how things are for Ron, because obviously parents are going to treat you differently to two men who are unrelated to you."

The conversation was becoming as personal as Harry was prepared to tolerate; he shifted restlessly and began to look for the handle to the door.

"Yeah, well this is nice, but if you've seen enough, Granger, I've got other stuff to do today – "

Sirius's head suddenly popped through the open window in the door.  He grinned at them.

"Not interrupting anything, am I?"

Harry looked mildly horrified.  "No!"

"Because the two of you look very cosy in there – "

"Give it a rest, Sirius!"

Hermione smothered a giggle and held up the bloomers she'd found.  Sirius's grin became positively wicked, but before Harry could explode with outrage his godfather grabbed the frilly underwear from Hermione and turned away from them.

"Oi Moony!" he yelled, brandishing the bloomers above his head.  "What have I told you about leaving your knickers under the coach seats?"

Harry's annoyance evaporated and he let out a crack of rude laughter.

Remus was out of sight, but his voice drifted back to them quite distinctly: "… Sirius, I realise it's probably a lost cause, but could you at least _try_ to act your age once in a while?"

Sirius grinned and turned back to the coach, unlatching the door to let Harry out.  "I think Ron just arrived," he suggested, and that was enough to send Harry dashing out of the coach-house without a backward look.

Sirius raised a brow at Hermione as she scrambled across the plush velvet seats. 

"For a second I thought you were going to suggest they were _his_ bloomers," she said frankly as he handed her down from the coach.

"Tempting - but there's only so far you can push a Slytherin's sense of humour," he replied.  "Haven't you noticed that?"

"The only sense of humour most of them seem to have is a nasty one," she said sourly.

"Maybe so.  I've come to realise that you have to catch Harry in the right mood.  And teasing him can be risky, because he doesn't always see the joke."

"But he's not like the other Slytherins," she pointed out.  Then she looked unsure.  "Is he?"

Sirius gave her an odd look.  "Don't you think so?"

"I don't know.  Sometimes it seems like he just puts on a good act."

"Remus and Dumbledore both tell me that the Sorting Hat doesn't make mistakes," he replied dryly.  "Dumbledore in particular insists that Harry is very much a Slytherin.  I suppose we have to draw our own conclusions from that."

 

xXx

 

There was still tension between Harry and Ron when they took Hermione down to the cellar workroom to show her what they were doing.  Ron was as disinclined as Sirius to tell Harry what Molly Weasley had to say, which left Harry to assume the worst and react accordingly.  He felt angry and defensive all over again, which would normally have manifested as defiance had he not also been determined to show that he didn't care by retreating behind his Slytherin face.

Sirius was used to the cold-shoulder and accepted it stoically, but Ron was left feeling decidedly bruised from the encounters with his mother's anger and Harry's bristling insecurities.  For once Hermione found herself stuck in the middle of the two of them and she quickly realised that it was easier fending off Harry's usual resentment than trying to deal with them both simultaneously when they were sullen and miserable.  They couldn't seem to decide whether they wanted to talk to each other or not, which led to stilted conversation punctuated by awkward silences and burning looks, and she was grateful when Remus called them upstairs after an hour.

He and Sirius were in the sitting room when the three teenagers arrived; with them was Petuarius Pettifer and a witch who was dressed formally in an elegant amber-coloured fitted robe buttoned up to her neck and a perky little hat pinned over her hair.  A smooth black mask hid her face. 

When Harry entered the room everyone stood up, and Mr. Pettifer gave Harry his usual semi-formal bow of greeting which Harry quickly returned.  Pettifer then turned to the witch.

"My dear, I should like to introduce you to Henry Potter the Younger – grandson of my old friend Henry Potter, you know.  My granddaughter Primrose, Henry."

Miss Pettifer curtseyed to Harry who, once again feeling under-dressed for the occasion, bowed formally over her hand.  When he straightened up, she had removed her mask to reveal a young woman of about the same age as Ron's brother Bill.  Her features held a hint of Pettifer's own, enough to show family resemblance, and her eyes were dark blue and intelligent.

"My godson's friends, Miss Pettifer, Mr. Pettifer," Sirius added quickly.  "Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley."

Ron followed Harry's example and bowed, his ears pink with embarrassment; Hermione smiled nervously, unsure how to respond.  Pettifer inclined his head to them, smiling genially, but his attention quickly turned back to Harry. 

"Well, Henry, shall we be on our way?  Primrose has some business with your godfather, but I'm sure I can rely on him to see her safely home afterwards."

Miss Pettifer smiled good-humouredly; undoubtedly she was more than capable of managing her own business without any assistance from Sirius, but she didn't contradict her grandfather.  There was a certain tension between Sirius and Remus at the statement, though, which drove all thought of quarrels with Ron out of Harry 's mind. 

Business with Sirius?  He was willing to bet that the pair of them had never even met before; what sort of business could this stylish pureblood witch have with Sirius?  If it had just been Sirius present he might have asked, but it was a measure of the impression Pettifer had made upon Harry that it never even crossed his mind to voice the question.

"I'll get my robe, sir."  Then he paused.  Quarrel or no quarrel, just disappearing for the rest of the morning was too cold for his liking.  "Could Ron and Hermione come with us?" he asked, and he felt a sudden rush of warmth at Ron's expression.

"Forgive me, but I think another day would be more appropriate," Pettifer said, with kindly authority.  "These are family matters we shall attend to.  On another occasion you may feel it appropriate to include your friends in your confidence, however."

Harry had to be content with that, but when the other two followed him upstairs while he changed his shirt and jeans for something more respectable, he felt rather guilty.

"If I can get Sirius and Remus to agree to it, I'll take you over there before we go back to school and show you around properly, yeah?" he said to Ron.  Then he gave Hermione a sideways look and added, "You too, Granger, I suppose."

She generously didn't take the bait.  "Thank you.  I'd like to see your house."

Ron grinned wryly.  "It's okay!  Mr. Pettifer makes me a bit nervous anyway."

"Who is he?" Hermione asked, as Harry checked to make sure he had everything he needed.

"One of my trustees," he replied.  "He was my grandfather's best friend."

"He's a wicked duellist," Ron said, making her brows go up with interest.  "I wonder what his granddaughter wants with Sirius though?"

"Maybe you'll find out and be able to tell me later," Harry suggested.

 

xXx

 

They Apparated to The Rose House, a mode of transport Mr. Pettifer confided to Harry that he wasn't fond of now he was older; he said his digits were less inclined to stay together during the journey.  They landed at the head of the driveway and it was a beautiful summer's day – it was hard to believe that the house in front of them was occupied only by the house-elves. 

In fact, for the first time Harry was conscious of a wish that he had been brought up here as he should have been, for The Rose House looked warm and inviting amid its gently landscaped grounds.  He had grown used to Black Manor being 'home' and he still considered it a far more homelike environment than number 4 Privet Drive had ever been to him, but there was no denying that the main bulk of the Manor was far from being somewhere comfortable for people to live.  It reminded him in many ways of the stately homes belonging to Muggle aristocrats that were open to the public, with their vast and grandly furnished rooms roped off so that people could look but not touch.

When they entered the house, they were greeted once more by Drooby who was delighted to see Harry again.

"We is all glad to see the young Master in his own home!" he announced proudly, when he'd bowed to Harry and Mr. Pettifer.  "Drooby is telling Dilly to bring tea, yes?"

"That would be most acceptable," Pettifer told the house-elf.  "In the study, if you please, Drooby.  Master Henry and I have some business to conduct there."

"And would you tell Maffy and the others that I'll be sure to come and see them all before I go?" Harry asked quickly.  It had suddenly occurred to him that if he didn't forestall his nurse, she might come looking for him.

Drooby bowed his acceptance and whisked away, leaving Mr. Pettifer to lead Harry to the study. 

The room was cool and pleasant in the morning sun and Harry took the time to look around it properly, instead of the cursory looks he'd given it on previous visits.  He was struck by how much the general layout matched the study at the Manor, although that was the only resemblance – everything here was lighter and more inviting, from the golden tones of the woodwork and furniture to the browns and creams of the pattern in the carpet.  His grandfather's desk stood squarely in a spot that would garner the best of the daylight from the windows; the wall nearest to it was lined with glass-fronted bookcases from floor to ceiling that were full of leather-bound books in regimented rows.  Curious, Harry went to look and discovered that the titles ranged from the arcane (books on various unfamiliar magical subjects) to the legal (wizarding law, much of it the broad-ranging legislation of the International Confederation of Wizards).  The legal books far outweighed in number any others on the shelves.

When Harry turned away, he found Mr. Pettifer watching him closely.

"You have been told that your grandfather was a diplomat, I presume?" the wizard asked.

"Yes sir.  Is that why he had all these books about magical law here?"

"Partly.  Some of them would have belonged to your great-grandfather, Edmund Potter.  He too was a diplomat – a number of your ancestors chose to follow that profession.  I imagine your father would have followed that course eventually as well, had matters not fallen out the way they did."

Harry looked mildly surprised.  "But he was an Auror, sir!"

Pettifer flicked his fingers dismissively.  "The occupation of an impulsive young man in a time of war, Henry!  Besides, we must all start somewhere.  Do you think your grandfather was always a civil servant?  Not so!  I first met him when he took an apprenticeship with my own father, as an importer and exporter of fine goods.  An apprenticeship which served him well, I might add, when he joined the Ministry later.  Part of his success was due to his network of friends and acquaintances across Europe and beyond.  No, your father may have begun his adult life as an Auror but had he lived I have no doubt he would have joined some other branch of the Ministry later."

Harry found that rather hard to believe, based on what he knew of his father, but he let it pass and returned to the desk to join Pettifer, who had seated himself in the rather grandly carved chair behind it.

"Now," the elder wizard said briskly, "I shall not bore you for overly long with these matters, but it is important that you should at least have an idea of how your family's finances are organised …."

Harry, accepting that as an adult he couldn't escape this kind of conversation, settled himself to listen with a purely inward sigh.  An hour later, having drunk the tea that Dilly provided, he had to admit a reluctant fascination.  Pettifer had shown him where to find no less than three safes hidden in the room, all of which contained copies of important legal and financial documentation.  A lot of the information in them went over Harry's head, but the broader details – mostly relating to the interests that the Potter family held historic shares in – caught his attention more.  These ranged from shares in vineyards in France, Spain and Italy (most of them wizard-owned, but some Muggle as well) to ownership of a small company that imported very rare and delicate potions ingredients, and interests in businesses as diverse as a chain of printers, publishers and bookbinders to small scale cheese producers in the Alps.

"Grandpapa had his fingers in a lot of pies," Harry commented at one point.

Pettifer chuckled.  "Oh, not all of these may be laid at his door!  Your forebears had the habit of investing in those things that caught their interest and, as I will hopefully show you today, their interests were very wide indeed.  It is a curious and endearing trait of your line, Henry, that they were blessed with a great delight in the world around them.  Another family of the Blood – say your godfather Sirius's kindred – would scorn any interest in the rural cheese-makers of Switzerland, but Edmund Potter discovered a little farm in the Alps during his youthful travels and enjoyed their produce so much that he invested in it.  And as you can see, it remains a going concern to this day.  A small addition to your income, but these things add up you know."

Harry didn't quite know what to do with Pettifer's description of his family, but he did know that he rather liked his great-grandfather for being game enough to invest in cheese.  He liked cheese too.

Then he looked at another sheet of parchment and blinked.  "Do I really own shares in Philo Lupin and Sons, Printers and Bookbinders?" he asked, rather dry-mouthed.

Pettifer's brows rose.  "Yes, indeed.  Philo Lupin was the founder of the company in 1639, but the business is run by your godfather Lupin's father and elder brothers now.  They are well known for the quality of their work.  But you should realise, Henry, that the British Isles hold a relatively small wizard population compared with other European countries.  Given the diversity of your family's interests, owning shares in the family business of one of your connections is hardly unusual."

When they finished going through finances, Pettifer turned his attention to family history.

"There is a great deal about your own kindred that you should have grown up knowing," he told Harry, "and I include the secrets of this house.  Fortunately, my many years of friendship with your grandfather led to me being admitted into the family's confidence and I can show you some of these things.  But others you will have to discover for yourself through simple exploration, and I hope that it will prove an agreeable diversion for you."  He produced a broad sheet of parchment.  "This is a simple outline of your family tree.  Presently I will show you the tapestry and books which contain full details of your ancestry, but for now we shall take this and relate it to the portraits of your forebears around the house."

 

xXx

 

By lunchtime Harry felt dazed and overwhelmed by the vast quantity of information Mr. Pettifer had imparted to him.  History and wizard genealogy were hobbies of the old man's and he knew a great deal about the doings of most of the First Families.  It was a treat to him to have a fresh and attentive audience, and Harry was sufficiently starved of his own history to drink it all in, facts, anecdotes and speculation alike.  He became better acquainted with the pertinent details of his direct ancestors and, as an aside, learned one or two interesting things about the families of the various ladies they had married.

He was still surprised every time he discovered that he was related to the families of people he knew or had met at some point.  Apparently he was even related very distantly to people like Professor Dumbledore and the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge.

"There are several points in your family's history where they were connected with your friend Weasley's family," Pettifer noted, as he led the way finally into the library.  "The Weasleys have always been a prolific clan ….  The young lady your godfather introduced this morning is unknown to me, however.  Presumably she is from a more recently established family?"

That was a delicate way of saying that the family could only trace its magical ancestry back a few generations.  It could also be a subtle insult, depending on how it was said and by whom, as Harry knew from conversations in the Slytherin common room at school.

"She's Muggleborn," he said rather flatly, but Pettifer only nodded.

"That would explain it.  There is no harm in that, Henry, as I hope you know.  Your own mother was a Muggleborn witch of course, and she was an exceptionally talented lady - utterly delightful."

"I know that," Harry muttered, conscious that the elder wizard was watching him closely again.

"Your grandfather was one of a small group of high-ranking wizards who held highly progressive ideals," Pettifer said unexpectedly.  "I think it highly important that you should know this.  He felt very strongly that the First Families were destroying themselves with their determination to maintain only the purest of magical bloodlines.  He had good reason to believe this, Henry, for a distressing malady entered your family a few generations ago which was almost certainly caused by inbreeding.  It seemed little less than a miracle that your bloodline survived, so when you father chose to marry a Muggleborn girl who could not possibly be related to the family in any way … well, your grandfather was greatly relieved."

" _He_ married a pureblood, though, didn't he?" Harry said before he could stop himself.

"Yes, although your grandmother Elvira was a Fitzcoeur - a cadet branch of the Bellecoeur family whose bloodline is significantly less rigorous than the parent family." 

Pettifer directed Harry towards a curious stand in the centre of the room.  It stood amid the tall bookshelves like a misplaced bible-rest from a church, and on it lay an enormous open book bound in dark green leather.  Each page was roughly two feet high and over eighteen inches wide, and made of thick, creamy parchment with an even surface.  Spidery writing in crimson ink filled one half of the left hand page; the rest of the two open pages were blank, but in a neat holder on the right-hand side of the stand was a lidded gold inkwell and – unusually for the wizarding world – a dipping pen with a smooth wooden handle and gold nib.

The stand was high, but it had a step at the front for a single person to stand on to read, or perhaps write in the book.  Pettifer indicated that Harry should step up onto this.

"This, Henry, is the Potter Family Chronicle," he said quietly.  "You will find a similar book in the libraries of several of the oldest First Families, and it is the duty of each _paterfamilias_ or his heir to maintain it.  One makes entries in it for all important events pertaining to the family – births, deaths, marriages and other matters of significance.  Note the size and age of it, my boy.  The appearance is misleading, for certain charms ensure that the book is always large enough for more entries, whilst the age of at least a portion of it is probably nine hundred years old or more."

Pettifer seemed to pause to collect his thoughts for a moment.  "I showed you your family tree, Henry, but you will have noted that the older branches were somewhat difficult to read due to their age.  The tapestry on the wall in the drawing room reaches back to – oh! – perhaps 1350 or so.  This Chronicle here holds the true details of your line from its inception, and should you care to investigate it, you will find – according to what your grandfather told me – that the first wizard of your line to call himself Potter was an associate of Godric Gryffindor and his name was Aelfric.  The name Potter he became known by because that was his trade; he was a maker of fine pots and cauldrons."

Harry might have felt somewhat disconnected from his distant progenitor, but at this he had to grin.  There was something reassuringly mundane in Aelfric Potter being a man who made cauldrons.

Pettifer saw his expression.  "That he made cauldrons and pots should not mislead you, Henry.  As with the majority of witches and wizards of his time, he was an educated man who could read and write and probably speak more than one language.  Such skills have ever set our kind apart from the greater number of Muggles.  But I digress."  He indicated the Chronicle again.  "So there are entries in this book that reach back to the first man who bore your name, some more readable than others I am sure, and now that you have returned to the house of your forebears the duty falls to you to make record of important facts about your family."  Pettifer paused to glance down at the left-hand page.  "The last entry would have been made by your father.  It would be appropriate, if you are so minded, for you to update it now with the date and manner of your parents' passing and perhaps some details of your own life to this point."

Harry suddenly felt nervous.  "Do I just write in it, then?"

"Of course."  Pettifer smiled faintly.  "You will find that the pen is charmed to prevent blotting and smearing, and should you need to cross anything out it will automatically be erased.  Shall I leave you to do that?  There are some small details of your trust that I should attend to in the study."

Harry agreed to this, but when Pettifer was gone he couldn't quite bring himself to pick up the pen.  Instead, he leaned forward over the great book and tried to make out his father's handwriting at the top of the first page.  His grandfather had written with a neat copperplate in his letter to Harry; James Potter's handwriting, by contrast, was a spiky script with long tails to the letters and slanting dots over the i's.

….so according to Dumbledore's arrangements, Lily and I will close up The Rose House and go to Godric's Hollow with Harry tomorrow, and I hope to God that Sirius knows what he's doing and the Fidelius Charm will be enough.  That said, I hope – I have to believe – this will all be over by Christmas and we'll celebrate at home, with our friends around us, again.

Harry stared at this for several moments, before carefully turning back a page.  He had to force himself not to read the earlier entries (for once he started, he was sure he would never stop), but he could see that each one began with the date and ended with the initials of the writer.  He turned back to the unfinished page, flipped the lid of the inkwell open and picked up the pen.  And hesitated.

Where to start?  He was conscious of the peacefulness of the library, of the ticking of a clock somewhere, and that there were a couple of portraits on the walls whose occupants were watching him with great interest.  Finally, he dipped the pen into the inkwell and carefully inscribed the date on the page.  Slowly at first, then with increasing confidence he began to write.

My father and mother went to Godric's Hollow, but after a change of plans the Fidelius Charm was cast with Peter Pettigrew as their Secret Keeper rather than my godfather Sirius Black.  But although they didn't know it, Pettigrew had become a Death Eater –

For the next three quarters of an hour nothing was heard but the scratching of the nib against the parchment as Harry steadily set down the details of James and Lily Potter's deaths and his own upbringing first by his aunt and uncle and then by Sirius and Remus.

 

xXx

 

After they had eaten a late lunch, Pettifer declared his intention to inspect the wine cellars.  He suggested that as Harry would probably find this a boring exercise he should perhaps explore the house looking for any hidden secrets it might possess, adding as a rider that the house-elves and portraits would probably be able to assist him.

Harry was sceptical about how much use the portraits might be (he had yet to discover a single family picture that was willing to speak to him), but the house-elves were another matter, so he took himself along to the kitchen where Keppy and Wibsey were making biscuits.  It didn't take any imagination at all to work out _why_ they were making such a vast array of biscuits, which gave Harry the kind of warm feeling he normally associated with spending time with Ron, and he would happily have spent the next hour there stealing little bits of biscuit dough and generally getting in their way had Looby – who managed the gardens – not put his head around the garden door and indicated humbly that he wanted his young master's attention outside.

Looby was not an elf who had much to say for himself, but he beamed and nodded when Harry followed him into the kitchen gardens and took hold of the teenager's wrist very gently to lead him down the path.  Puzzled but quite willing, Harry allowed himself to be guided through the gardens at the rear of the house and out into a small meadow.  They continued to follow an old track around the edge of the meadow until they reached a small cluster of very large, very elderly oak trees.  Looby led Harry into the middle of these and stopped at the foot of one enormous trunk where, bowing and smiling, he pointed up into the branches.

Harry craned his neck to look up.  The trunk was very old and knobbly and it suddenly occurred to him that the knobbles were rather well placed for a person to use them as foot- and hand-holds if they wished.  Surprised, he looked at Looby, who was nodding encouragingly and gesturing for him to try it.  So Harry warily grasped the nearest knobbles and began to climb.  He wasn't very far up the trunk before he saw what Looby was trying to show him.

It was a tree-house.

Harry was delighted.  As a child he had more than once noticed the tree-house belonging to one of the kids living nearby in Lobelia Crescent (Lobelia Crescent had been a few streets away from Privet Drive and the houses had all been larger, with bigger gardens) and had spent many hours in his cupboard under the stairs dreaming of escaping to a tree-house of his own.  The irony was not lost on him now, though; had he been raised here, in his family home, he would have had the tree-house for real.

Which was not to say that he was too old to enjoy his tree-house now, and he knew at once that no Muggle tree-house could ever compare to this one.  It was large and well-constructed, with a tiled roof, a proper door and several glazed windows.  Harry had his doubts about how much use those windows would be this deep into the knot of trees, but as soon as he opened the door he could tell that they had been charmed to let in more sunlight than could possibly reach them from the outside.  The room before him was bathed in a warm glow, immediately revealing a thick carpet, heavy curtains and squashy sofa and chairs.

And Harry felt a laugh surging up in his chest.  This place had not been touched in two decades; the furnishings were probably someone's idea of a cool bachelor pad – if that person was a wizard in the 1960s or '70s.  The lurid colours and patterns were nearly blinding and, typically of wizard ideas of 'glam', did not stay stable but changed themselves every so often.  As Harry watched, the carpet seemed to ripple and a new pattern flowed across its surface followed, a few moments later, by a contrasting design that crept across the surface of first the sofa, then the chairs and curtains. 

There was other furniture, however, that had obviously been in the tree-house for much longer than James Potter's loopy sofa and chairs.  An old mahogany bookcase covered one wall, stuffed to overflowing with books that ranged from elderly titles in cloth-covered hardbacks to more recent paperback novels.  Against another wall was a piece of furniture, also in warm mahogany, that looked a little like a welsh dresser; it was full of knickknacks, but when Harry opened the lower cupboard doors he discovered a kettle, teapot, several mugs and a caddy full of tea, not to mention half a dozen elderly bottles of butterbeer.

Butterbeer being one of those substances that was charmed not to go bad over time, Harry helped himself to a bottle, popping the cork with a tap of his wand, and settled down to explore further.  All sorts of objects rested on the shelves of the dresser, including a set of potions scales; two astrolabes (one tiny and intricate and one of a more normal size); a device he vaguely recognised as being a sextant (had one of his forebears been a seaman?); two very battered Beaters' bats with the names of Quidditch team members carved into them; a small glass box containing a fluttering Snitch; a wooden box with a faded, peeling label that was filled to the brim with scratched and chipped marbles; a model hot air balloon in red and blue stripes, tethered to a hook on the corner of the shelves and bobbing above its little wicker basket; a tray of butterbeer corks; an object that looked like a large egg but which was as cold and heavy as a piece of marble; a replica broomstick about fourteen inches long, with the Nimbus logo on its handle ….

Harry examined these curios in fascination, poking the hot air balloon with a gentle fingertip and deciphering the names and dates on the bats.  When he was finished there, he wandered past the bookcase (the contents could probably wait for another occasion), grinned at a clock on the wall that chimed the half hour with the opening bars of "Hickory Dickory Dock", and ended up flopping into one of the chairs.  He wondered idly if it would change patterns while he was sitting there and the charms would affect his robes, leaving him wearing hideous pink and lime-green paisley.

There was a low coffee table between the chairs and sofa; another relic of a more dignified era, it was also mahogany with sturdy little legs that had been gnawed on by something – perhaps a dog or crup.  The surface of the table was covered in old magazines.  Harry picked a couple up and snorted when he saw that one was _Quidditch Monthly_ and the other a copy of _Girls On Brooms!_   A third had the alarming title of _Crup Fancier_ , although further investigation revealed that it was merely a breeder's guide, much to Harry's relief.

The fourth was a faded Ministry booklet titled _What To Do In The Event Of A Death Eater Attack: A Householder's Guide_.  Harry flicked through it scornfully (much of the advice it contained was predictably unhelpful) and tossed it back onto the table.

He sat back for a moment, sipping his butterbeer and absorbing the quiet of the tree-house.  Opposite him, behind the sofa, was a square table with two solid wooden chairs drawn up to it, like a study desk in the library at Hogwarts.  Above that on the wall hung a large cork-board with things pinned onto it – Quidditch team pennons, a calendar showing the Holyhead Harpies, newspaper clippings, photographs ….  Harry got up and went to look.

There was a photograph of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team of 1974, with his father standing in the middle with his broom in one hand and the Quaffle under his other arm, grinning like an idiot.  Next to him was Sirius, a Beater's bat swinging in one hand ….  Another team photo, but this one much, much older and sepia-toned; Harry had to squint to see the faces in the fading picture, but there was another Gryffindor Chaser smiling at him self-consciously, with the same Potter hair and spectacles, and the label underneath said that this was the house team of 1871.

 _1871?_   Harry was shocked.  It was definitely his grandfather in that photograph, the list of names underneath confirmed it, but – 1871?  Henry Potter didn't look older than fourteen or fifteen.  Harry did the calculations in his head and realised, with another jolt, that his grandfather must have been over a hundred and twenty years old when he died.  Which meant that he must have been in his late nineties at least when Harry's father was born.

 _Wizards naturally live to well over a hundred_ , he reminded himself, but to someone raised among Muggles it was still a startling and uncomfortable idea that his grandfather had fathered a child at such an advanced age.

There were other pictures – mostly of James Potter's friends, including one of Sirius sitting astride his motorbike.  He had long shaggy hair and a beard, was dressed in scruffy bell-bottom jeans and a lilac shirt with an enormous collar, and there was a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.  He appeared to be pontificating to someone just outside the shot, his slim aristocratic hands waving in the air, but when he realised that he was being watched he turned very deliberately to look at Harry, took the cigarette out of his mouth, shook his hair back off his face and winked flirtatiously.

"What a stud!" Harry murmured facetiously, and suddenly he cracked up laughing.

Photo-Sirius clearly viewed this as a mission accomplished, for he grinned at Harry and made a finger-pistol of his left hand, pretending to fire it at the teenager, before turning back to whoever he was talking to.

Smiling, Harry scanned the other pictures, noting one of a young Remus sprawled belly down across a sofa, fast asleep with his face pillowed on an open book and ink on his dangling fingers and another of Remus and Peter Pettigrew having a cushion fight in the Gryffindor common room.  A third photograph was of Harry's mother, standing in the snow and looking very pretty in her knee-high white boots and long, blue, hooded coat trimmed with shaggy white fur.  She waved to Harry with a mittened hand and stamped her feet a little from the cold, her breath issuing in freezing white puffs.  There were a couple of James himself, showing off on a broom, and a whole collection of Henry Potter in rather stiff, posed photographs with his own friends, holding brooms or walking crups and even in one fascinating picture playing a human chess game in a garden somewhere.

Harry worked his way along the board, looking at flyers for poetry recitations and Gobstones tournaments, a collection of coupons from cigarette packets tacked together under a pin, tickets saved from a concert somewhere, and a shopping list in his father's spiky handwriting that included such items as _broom wax, ink, toffees_ and (enigmatically) _biscuits for Cheron_.

When Harry came to the end of the board he was standing next to one of the windows.  He glanced out of it and was mildly surprised to see that he had a narrow but clear line of sight through the trees and across the gardens.  And he noticed that there was some kind of small, square building on the far side of the ornamental gardens. 

No one had mentioned this building to him, any more than they had mentioned the tree-house until Looby showed him, but in fairness Harry hadn't asked either.  As Mr. Pettifer had noted, some things he had to discover for himself and within moments he was scrambling down from the tree-house.  It would be a pretty good way of seeing the gardens too, he thought, and he enjoyed sauntering down the well-kept paths, through a couple of arched gates, until he came to an area of the garden that was still well kept but clearly designed to look 'wild' rather than 'cultivated'.  In the middle of this stood the building he had seen from the tree-house.

It was an odd sort of structure.  It was built of light grey granite and was a boxy sort of shape, appearing to be only one storey in height and low at that.  There were no windows, and the single wooden door (heavy dark oak and banded in iron apparently to match the style of the old front doors of the main house) was protected by a pair of narrow ironwork gates across the front.  Harry circled the building twice, noting the neat slate roof and single family crest carved into the stone at eaves level on each side before putting his hand to the gates and saying _"Alohomora!"._

The gates swung open easily and all he had to do was turn the ring handle on the inner door to open it.  For one moment he was greeted with pitch darkness and cool, stale air, then lamps sprang to life to light his way down a short set of six steps into a stone vault.

It took no genius at all to realise what he had discovered.  The memorial at the far end of the room would have told him that even had he not at once seen the rows of stone plaques along the walls covering the openings to the many graves.  There were even plaques set into the floor beneath his feet.  This must be the family mausoleum, where generations of his ancestors were laid to rest.

He might still have walked away had he not been alone and his curiosity too strong to withstand.

So he stepped inside and approached the memorial as briskly as he could under the circumstances.  It was a carved marble angel set high up on the wall, above a sconce holding a cross and a permanent wizard light.  The arms of the angel held a shield with the family crest and its bare feet rested upon a bronze plaque with the following inscription:

 

 _In Memoriam to_

 _The kindred and descendents of_

 _Aelfric Potter_

 _Most noble founder of our line._

 _Where his bones lie we know not_

 _But trust in God to save_

 _And pray that he watches over us all_

 _Living and deceased_

 _Unto eternity._

 _Fides et fortitudo vincerunt_

 

That was less than illuminating.  Harry looked around uncertainly.  The names he saw all seemed reasonably familiar from the family tree Mr. Pettifer had just shown him, but he couldn't immediately see –

There.  Low down on the left hand wall was a row that was shorter than the others, followed by a long blank space of presumably empty tombs.  One name jumped out at him, then another. __

 _Henry Christian Potter_

 _Elvira Portia Potter (née Fitzcoeur), his loving spouse_

Harry's grandfather and grandmother.  Which meant that the next ones along should be –

 _James Edmund Potter_

 _Lily Rosemary Potter (n_ _é_ _e Evans)_

Harry had to force his feet to take him over there, and once he was there the simplest thing was to sit down cross-legged before the two double tombs.  (He hoped that Stephen Potter (born 1623, died 1739) and his wife Margaret (born 1637, died 1744) wouldn't mind him sitting on them for a moment or two.)

 _James Edmund Potter, devoted husband and father (b. 18 th December 1958, d. 31st October 1981)_

 _Lily Rosemary Potter (née Evans)_ , _loving wife and devoted mother (b. 13 th March 1959, d. 31st October 1981)_

There was more there, something about them being 'most foully slain' and a quote from the Bible about vengeance ….  Harry didn't read it.  He didn't need to.  All the information he needed to know was there in those first few words.

James Edmund Potter.  Lily Rosemary Potter.  Here were his parents, right here in this tomb – this was the closest he had been to them, physically, since the day they died.  It was a deeply emotional moment for Harry and before even he knew what he intended, his left hand was reaching out to touch the facing of the tomb, his fingers spreading across the chiselled letters and his palm flat against the stone.

When Harry was eleven years old, he discovered the Mirror of Erised in an abandoned room at Hogwarts Castle and for the first time in his life he had seen his mother and father gazing back at him from the glass … not only his mother and father but also a legion of his other relatives stretching out behind them.  And when Dumbledore had removed the mirror for his own safety, Harry had felt bereft in a way that not even portraits and photographs of his family could fully assuage.

Now, six years later, they had been returned to him.  He could not have explained the feeling if his life depended upon it.  But once he had reached out to touch the glass of the Mirror and first his mother, then his father had reached back as if to touch him in return.  And here, today, surrounded by those very ancestors he'd seen in the Mirror, Harry reached out to touch his parents once again.

 

xXx

 

Harry returned to Black Manor that evening perhaps an hour before dinner, tired and very conscious of having spent the whole day at his own house rather than here, helping to restore the cellar workroom and investigate the library.

The house was silent when he stepped out of the Floo.

"Hello?" he called, rather surprised.  "Sirius?  Remus?  Ron?" 

No response.  He wandered over to the garden door and looked out; no sign of anyone.  The pantry door was open though, so he walked through to the courtyard and looked around.

"Hello?" he called again, wondering where everyone was.  He went back inside and through the kitchen to the sitting room.  The long windows out onto the patio area were open; he walked through and followed the path around to the back of the house, to find Ron and Hermione standing on the gravel pathway and dusting themselves off as though they had just come out of the cellars.

Ron looked up and grinned broadly when he saw Harry.  "Oy!  I thought I heard you!  Where've you been all day?"

Harry couldn't help a big grin in response.  "Sorry!  There was loads to do and we never noticed the time."

"Has Mr. Pettifer gone home?" Hermione asked as they fell into step with him and went back to the house.

"Yeah.  He said his granddaughter would get annoyed if he was late for dinner."

"She caused one hell of a row here!" Ron said at once.  "Blimey, mate, I reckon it hasn't been Sirius's day, what with having a row with Mum this morning and then with Remus just before lunch."

"They had a fight?"  Harry was astonished.  He could count on the fingers of one hand how often he'd heard the pair of them let rip at each other. 

"Not really," Hermione put in dryly.  "It takes two people to fight and Professor Lupin just let Sirius shout and refused to get angry."

"But what was it all about?"

"All we know," Ron said, "was that Miss Pettifer was talking to Sirius and Remus for ages in the sitting room, and then after she left Sirius started shouting."

"Well, if you heard him shouting, you must have heard what it was about!" Harry said impatiently.  "He's got a voice like a bloody Quidditch announcer when he starts yelling."

"I think Professor Lupin must have cast some kind of muffling charm, because we couldn't hear the actual words," Hermione said.

Harry sighed.  "So where are they now?"

"Remus went out a couple of hours ago, to do some grocery shopping he said, and Sirius is lying on the terrace," Ron told him.

Harry stopped in the middle of the path.  "He's _what?_ "

"He turned into a dog just before Remus went out," Ron explained.  "He's been a dog all afternoon."

"Christ."  Harry wasn't sure he wanted to get involved, if it was bad enough for Sirius to spend most of the day in dog form.  On the other hand, he supposed he should go and see if his godfather was all right.  "Tell you what, let's make some tea and go round there.  I've got a tonne of fresh biscuits here."

Padfoot was lying at the top of the steps leading down from the terrace into the formal gardens.  He raised his head and thumped his tail a little when Harry and the others walked across the terrace to join him, but didn't get up. 

Harry sat down on the top step next to him. 

"I brought you a mug of tea," he said, setting it down between them.  "Ron says you had a row with Remus.  Are you all right?"  Padfoot put his head down on his front paws and sighed deeply.  "Right.  I s'pose that answers that question.  Biscuit?"

Padfoot thumped his tail again, so Harry gave him a couple of the crisp cinnamon biscuits from his plate.  When it was clear his godfather had no intention of changing shape, he turned his attention back to Ron and Hermione.

"Pity you couldn't come with me," he said, passing the biscuits around.  "I found out loads of stuff about my family."  He grinned at Ron a little ruefully.  "Reckon my brain's about to leak."

"Yeah?"  Ron munched on a biscuit.  "These are brilliant."

"Keppy and Wibsey made them fresh."

Hermione's head came up at once.  "Keppy and Wibsey?" she asked suspiciously.

"Don't start," Ron told her wearily.

"Kitchen elves," Harry said rather indistinctly around a mouthful of sweet crumbs.

"You have _house-elves_ at your house?"

Harry swallowed his biscuit.  "Yeah.  Eight of them."

Her expression would have been funny under other circumstances, for her eyes nearly popped out with dismay.

"Potter!" she said, outraged.

"Let it go!" Ron told her, annoyed.  "It's not like they're – "

"You were raised by Muggles, you should know better!" Hermione told Harry angrily, ignoring Ron completely.  "It's _slavery_ to keep house-elves!"

"Isn't," Harry said coolly, bracing himself for a fight.  "What do you know about it anyway, Granger?"

"House-elves are intelligent beings and they have rights – "

"Not legally, they don't," Ron muttered, and she rounded on him and thumped his arm.

"That's my _point!_   It's disgusting the way wizards enslave other creatures and treat them like dirt – "

"I _don't_ treat them like dirt!" Harry snapped.  "And if you hit Ron again, I'll hex you into the middle of next week!  Just because some people treat them badly, doesn't mean everyone does.  The elves at my house are happy."

"You mean they're brainwashed!" she shot back.  "What were they doing for sixteen years before you bothered to go back there?  They were stuck in that house with no people around and unable to go anywhere – "

"Not true!  They can come and go as much as they like – "

"You might never have gone back and then what would have happened to them?  I don't suppose you have the common decency to pay them wages or let them wear proper clothes or – or - "  She ran out of breath and ideas.

"You know sod all about house-elves," Harry told her with withering scorn.  "You try offering Drooby or Maffy wages and see what they say to you!  Except that you don't bother talking to house-elves, do you, Granger?  You just _decided_ , based on how one or two house-elves are treated, that they all need to be freed regardless of whether they want to be or not.  What do you think'd happen to the house-elves anyway, if you managed to get the law changed?  Do you _seriously_ think that most wizards would pay them to do the work they used to do for nothing?"  Harry blew a raspberry at her red face.  "Most of them'd end up unemployed and starving.  And for what?  Because _you_ decided they'd be better off that way!  You're a patronising do-gooder, Granger, and you don't know the first thing about it."

"And I suppose you think you _do_ know all about it?" she shot back.

"I reckon I know more than you," he said, shrugging.  "The school kitchens are a great place to hide out, because snobs like Malfoy would never dream of going there.  I did most of my OWLs revision in the kitchens."

"I expect you made a nuisance of yourself," Hermione said, in a tone which was probably meant to sound sharp but instead came out rather resentfully.

"Bollocks to that.  They were nice to me."  And Harry suddenly shut up, his jaw tightening and avoiding eye contact.  Padfoot made an odd little rumbling sound in his chest and shuffled along the grassy edge of the steps until he was leaning against Harry's side.

"Can we shut up about the house-elves now?" Ron said in a very tired voice.  "I was sort of hoping to hear about all the other Potters."

"My great-grandfather invested in cheese," Harry muttered over the rim of his mug, and then wondered what on earth had prompted him to say that.

"What kind of cheese?" Ron asked, perplexed.

"Swiss cheese."

"Er – why?" Hermione asked warily.

"Because he _liked_ cheese."  Harry picked up one of Keppy's gingerbread men and watched it winking and waving to him.  "I like cheese too," he said to no one in particular.

"Nothing wrong with cheese," Ron agreed mildly, and Padfoot licked his chops noisily.  "What about the others?"

"There was this bloke called Aelfric Potter.  He knew Godric Gryffindor."

"Yeah?"

"He made cauldrons and cooking pots." 

But Harry's heart wasn't really in the conversation anymore.  He wanted to tell Ron about all the things he'd discovered, but he'd lost any inclination he might have had to share the information with Hermione.  And if Sirius and Remus were at odds with each other he didn't think he could deal with it.

As if sensing his thoughts, Padfoot nudged him gently and Harry absently tucked his fingers behind the velvety black ears and scratched.  The dog sighed.

"I suppose I'd better be going," Hermione said reluctantly, when the silence had stretched out beyond a point where even she couldn't ignore it.  "Ron, I'll Floo to The Burrow with you."  This was said rather pointedly.

"Yeah, I did say I'd be home for dinner tonight," Ron agreed, and he stretched slightly before giving Harry a gentle poke in the shoulder.  "I'll probably pop back later, mate, okay?"

Harry looked at him gratefully, but Hermione's expression developed a severity that almost matched Mrs. Weasley's for a moment.  She stood up and took a rather brisk leave of Harry and

Padfoot, and all but dragged Ron away, barely pausing even to say goodbye to Remus who appeared around the corner of the terrace just as they were leaving.

Remus strolled over to join Harry and Padfoot, carrying a mug of the tea Harry had made and looking surprisingly at ease. 

"You're back," he said genially to Harry.  "Have a good day?"

"It was okay," Harry said, although the shine had been taken off his trip to The Rose House rather effectively.

"So I see," Remus observed.  He sat down on the step next to Harry.  "Still got Padfoot, I see.  And Hermione looked ready to chew nails, so it would appear that the day has ended the way it began."

"Ron told me you and Sirius had a row," Harry said, deciding to be upfront about it.

"I wouldn't call it a row," Remus said with a slight smile.  "We had a difference of opinion, that's all."  Padfoot made a grumbling sound and heaved himself around so that his back was to Remus.

"He spent all afternoon as a dog," Harry said disbelievingly.

"That's his choice, Harry."

Harry sighed.  "Fine.  Is it even worth me asking what it was about?"

"I think you should ask Sirius that."

"Yeah, he's really in a mood to talk to me, can't you tell?"  Harry heaved another sigh, aware that his godfather was watching him with gentle, sympathetic amusement.  "Keppy and Wibsey made me some biscuits," he said finally, and he offered Remus the dish.  "Ron didn't eat all of them."

"Thank you."  Remus accepted one.  "I bought some tuna steaks for dinner.  I thought perhaps we could get the barbecue out and grill them. What do you think?"

"Okay.  What about Sirius?"

"That depends on whether he can be bothered to change back and eat at the table with us like a civilised person," Remus said lightly, and he stood up.  "I'll see you indoors, Harry."

Even the lure of freshly grilled tuna wasn't enough to convince Sirius to resume human shape, though.  He stayed tucked up against Harry's leg as the teenager ate, and Harry ended up getting into trouble for slipping half his own steak to Padfoot when he thought Remus wasn't looking.

"You'll have to be a lot sneakier than that to fool me," his godfather warned, half-amused, half-annoyed.  "And he'll stay in that shape for as long as you're willing to pander to him, Harry.  If we were on our own he'd have been a person again within a couple of hours, but he knows he can count on you for sympathy."

"Where'd you get that idea?" Harry demanded.

"Oh, I don't know – it probably has something to do with the fact that you've been petting his ears for the past twenty minutes!" Remus retorted.  "Your father was a mug for Padfoot too."

Padfoot gave a rumbling half-growl, his eyes fixed on Remus.

"Don't even think about it," Remus warned him.  "I've known you for over twenty-five years, Sirius, and if you think you're going to start using Padfoot to manipulate me now, you've another thought coming to you.  And if you try to use Harry, you'll be sorry."

Padfoot stood up and barked sharply.

"How badly do you want to spend the night on the kitchen floor, like an ordinary dog?" Remus asked him pleasantly, but there was underlying steel in his voice.

Harry wondered if it was safe to laugh.  Probably not.  "You wouldn't," he said.  "Would you?"

"Perfectly doable," Remus said, his eyes never leaving Padfoot's.  "There's a charm that can stop Animagi changing back to human shape at will."

Ears flat against his skull, Padfoot scrambled under the patio table and fled into the house.

"That was mean," Harry said appreciatively.  It wasn't often that Remus's wolf displayed itself in his human form.

"He's being ridiculous and he knows it," Remus said.  "Have some more potatoes."

 

xXx

 

Wherever Sirius had gone to, he didn't reappear again.

In the meantime Remus settled on the patio with a book and Harry set to work on a new puppet, wondering when Ron would come back.  In the event, however, Ron made no more of an appearance than Sirius did.  When the light began to fade, the two of them first set up wizard lights above the patio, then moved into the living room.  Harry was making significant progress on his puppet (a three dimensional snake, copied from his _Fantastical Anatomy_ book) by the time Remus made hot chocolate and handed him a cup.

"You're making real progress with this stuff," he remarked, watching Harry delicately shave a piece of balsa wood into shape.  The snake's frame was a series of many ribs along a very flexible spine; it looked like a tedious job to make them all but Harry was showing unusual patience with it.

"I'd like to have a go at animating bigger shapes," Harry said.  "And I'd like to see some of the stuff Sirius's dad made – you know, examine it."

"You might get a chance after church tomorrow," Remus replied.  "We'll have a go at the library at last."  He yawned.  "Well, it doesn't look like Sirius is going to grace us with his presence, so I think I'll toddle off to bed."

"Yeah."  Harry cleared his materials back into their box with a packing charm and closed the lid.  Then he looked at Remus.  "Will things be okay with Sirius?"

Remus smiled.  "Of course they will!  Don't worry – he'll get over it and be back to his normal self by morning, if I know him."

Harry was less convinced of this but he didn't argue.  He helped Remus to lock up – casting a disappointed glance at the kitchen fireplace as he did so – and followed him up the stairs.

He supposed he should have been surprised when he walked into his bedroom and found Padfoot on the rug, but he wasn't really.  The huge black dog looked up at him with mournful eyes and waved his tail hesitantly.

"You're being a bit childish, you know?" Harry told him bluntly, as he put his box away.  The dog's tail drooped.  "Well, you are.  But that's your problem.  If you don't want to tell me what's going on, I can't make you."  He stared at the dog moodily, then made himself say what was on his mind.  "I don't like it when you fight with Remus.  But I suppose it's none of my business.  I'm going to get a shower and it's going to be boring because Ron isn't here to scrub my back tonight."

He took himself off to the bathroom and when he returned Sirius was sitting on the end of his bed.  This too was not entirely unexpected.  The older man smiled wryly at him but didn't speak until Harry had put his clothes and bathrobe away.

"Go on then," Harry said finally, sitting next to him.  "What's going on?"

Sirius rubbed the side of his nose, looking uncomfortable.  "You remember Miss Pettifer from this morning?"

"I reckon my memory'll stretch back that far," Harry replied dryly.  "Ron said she caused the row?  How did she do that?"

"Well, um – she offered to have a baby for me."

"But she's a pureblood and everything!" Harry said blankly.  "Why would she want to do something like that?"  He honestly hadn't seen this coming.  Then another thought occurred to him.  "Mr. Pettifer won't like it, will he?"

"That's an interesting thing," Sirius said.  "I'd have said the same, but apparently he agrees with it.  Primrose Pettifer isn't a pureblood, you see – technically she's a half-blood, because her mother's Muggleborn.  Primrose is the daughter of Pettifer's eldest son and Claude Pettifer doesn't acknowledge her.  He didn't want his father to either, but her mother went to Pettifer and he acknowledged Primrose anyway."

"So she's like me," Harry said, surprised. 

"Pettifer was one of your grandfather's intimates," Sirius reminded him.  "It should hardly be surprising that he holds the same principles as Henry.  Claude's a different matter though.  I don't know him personally, but it's rumoured he hasn't seen eye to eye with his father for years, and reading between the lines I'd say that the business over Primrose was part of it."

"He was at my birthday party," Harry said, remembering the cool, stiff bow of Mr. Pettifer's eldest son when they were introduced.  "He's like that bloke Bellecoeur – really hated being there and having to even speak to me."

Sirius looked at him.  "How do you mean?"

Harry shrugged.  "You get to tell with people.  Something about the way they look at you."  He let out a short breath of unamused laughter.  "You know what's weird?  Even Voldemort doesn't look at me like that.  He'll call me a half-breed and whatnot, but he never looks at me like I'm something he trod in."

"He hardly has a reason to," Sirius remarked.  "Look, that's beside the point.  Miss Pettifer approached me directly about it.  She's not particularly interested in the money – well, there's no reason why she should be, because Pettifer is rich and he made a settlement on her when he took her in.  What she wants is something a bit different."

"She doesn't want to marry you, does she?" Harry demanded, alarmed.

"We wouldn't be having this conversation if she did!  No, she's looking for security against the day Pettifer passes on.  She thinks – and I'm sure she has reason – that her father will make life difficult for her when Pettifer dies.  By the sound of things, Pettifer thinks so too.  So in return for giving me at least one heir she wants Remus and me to give her houseroom.  She doesn't want to be living under any Pettifer roof when her father becomes _paterfamilias._ "

"Does she know about you and Remus?" Harry asked.

"She does."  And Sirius's tone was wry.  "She told us up front that she doesn't have a problem with it and has no intention of interfering.  She just wants a place to live where her father can't cause her trouble, and if she's under my roof and protection he won't be able to.  Not without making the kind of stink I doubt he'd enjoy, anyway."

"But if she has money, what's to stop her getting a flat or something?"  Harry was no means keen on the idea of Primrose Pettifer moving in with them all.  A baby would be bad enough. 

"Living on her own would make it possible for him to harass her."  Sirius raised his brows at Harry as he said it.  "Not quite her words, but that was what she meant.  A single person is vulnerable, as Remus will tell you."

"You're going to do it then?"

"I don't know."  Sirius sighed heavily.  "My first instinct was to say no straight away.  I really wasn't expecting this to happen so quickly.  But Remus seems to think it's a good idea and he says I should just do it and get it over with."

"He seems really calm about it," Harry commented.

His godfather snorted.  "That's because he is, the git.  He and Miss Pettifer got along like a house on fire."

Harry blinked at this and was surprised by an urge to laugh.  No wonder Sirius was so grumpy; on the few occasions previously when the subject had come up, it had been a bone of contention between the two men because of Sirius's necessary involvement with a woman.  Now the shoe was unexpectedly on the other foot, with Remus neatly striking up a friendship with the woman in question, and Sirius didn't like it.

"Yes, very funny!" Sirius growled, reading Harry's face.  "I'm thinking that if I go along with this, she can live at Grimmauld Place."

"That's just nasty!" Harry told him, amused, although the part of him that didn't want a baby, let alone the baby's mother, to intrude on their family was entirely in agreement with the idea.  She could deal with Mrs. Black's portrait and then decide if it was really so bad living with her father after all.

xXx

 

The next few days took on a pattern.  The mornings would be taken up with things like fixing the basement workroom, a project Harry and Ron worked at under occasional supervision, while Sirius, Remus and any available Order members tackled the more mundane restoration of the ground floor.  In the afternoons Mr. Pettifer would arrive to give Harry duelling lessons.

Hermione would occasionally join them, but her appearances were patchy; she claimed this was due to obligatory visits to relatives, which was undoubtedly partially true, but it didn't escape Harry's notice that her visits were often also timed to avoid the more boring parts of the exercise.  He and Ron spent three solid days clearing rubble and replacing the brick lining in the workroom, and while Hermione was intrigued by the charms Bill taught them to secure the goblin-made material she was less interested in getting involved in the practical application of them.  She was of invaluable assistance when the time came to replace the wards, though.  The three of them spent two evenings drawing up a plan of the workroom and plotting the charm framework onto it with Remus's help.  Sirius suggested that they could do a couple of dry runs in the (temporarily emptied) wine cellar; that took another solid morning as each of them took turns until they were sure they could both anchor and release the wards safely.  They had to aim for something simpler than the original wards on the workroom, which had almost certainly been set by a professional securiwizard, but the room would be more than sufficient for the needs of the current occupants of Black Manor (up to and including an ambitious young Animator) and was guaranteed not to bring the house down around everyone's ears if an accident occurred.

Harry could have wished that Mr. Pettifer had chosen a time other than after lunch for his lessons, even though he understood the logic behind it.  Based on his previous confrontations with Voldemort, he knew that it was vital that he be able to fight efficiently even when he was exhausted, but that didn't make the reality any more appetising.  He would have liked, just occasionally, to duel with the energetic old man when he was fresh enough to enjoy the experience, but he didn't complain.  Nor did Ron, even though it meant that for most of that week they were too busy or too exhausted to consider doing more than some inspired flirting with each other when they thought no one else was looking.

Ron was an enthusiastic sparring partner for Harry, but Pettifer would only allow this for part of the lesson.  He was very much a hands-on teacher; possibly because it was evident how much he enjoyed the art for its own sake.  Nevertheless, he wasn't blind to the realities of his pupil's needs and when, inevitably, Harry not only clued in fully to his teacher's greatest weakness (his age and consequent lack of stamina) _and_ steeled himself to take advantage of it, he was quite matter-of-fact about the need to call in a variety of other partners.  This could sometimes have unpredictable results; one afternoon Harry ended up hanging upside down from the chandelier fittings while a stunned Ron and Sirius floated gently in the air below him, while on another a troupe of small monkeys got loose from the ballroom and had to be rounded up by several very amused Order members.

"Not quite the curse we were aiming for," Pettifer observed calmly, when the monkeys had been secured and Banished.  "However, as a distraction technique ...."

Once again, Hermione's appearances were sporadic; initially keen to participate, it took only a couple of instances of Harry rapidly disarming her before she backed out of things again. 

Pleased with his success, Harry made a rare attempt at magnanimity by suggesting she was busy, only for Ron to dismiss this with a snort.

"It's not that, mate - she just doesn't like being beaten in anything!"

This Harry had already noticed.  Hermione had taken the first possible opportunity to enquire into his Charms NEWT results and while she had immediately congratulated him upon passing the exam, it was obvious that it pleased her to have achieved a better percentage than him.  Which she had done, by a single percent, but while that had been enough to gratify her need to be ahead of him, it was also clear that she would have liked the gap to be wider.

"Hermione is a scholar at heart," Remus observed, overhearing Ron's remark.  "She'll always excel at anything that relies primarily on book-learning - she could probably quote the rules and regulations of the formal duel to you as well as Mr. Pettifer can.  The practical side is another matter.  In an academic setting I'm sure there isn't a charm, curse or hex she couldn't master.  But faced with a pressurised situation where she has to make a split-second decision on whether to curse someone at high power, she flounders.  She's a thinker, you see.  Gut instinct and reflex aren't her forte."

"She doesn't like to fly either," Ron added.  "She couldn't wait to get her Apparition licence."

"Well there you go."

Harry accepted this explanation of her behaviour with a mental shrug and filed it away in the part of his brain where he tended to stow random bits of information about other people.  It might be useful to know that about Hermione at some later date; he didn't know, but for the time being he was really indifferent to it.  If she decided to join them, then she joined them.  It seemed to please Ron that she was getting involved, which was all that mattered to Harry.  But he didn't pretend to be disappointed when she didn't turn up.

 

xXx

 

By the end of the week the ground floor was starting to look if not respectable, then at least cleaner and less grim than it had.  Vast amounts of rubbish had been removed, furniture either stored or burned according to its condition, and dust and cobwebs brushed away.  All that was left to tackle was the vast library, and that was designated as a job for the Sunday afternoon.

The day started promisingly enough.  At breakfast Sirius and Remus talked casually about the day's projected programme of church, Harry's Confirmation class, and the investigation of the library.  Harry, although a little out of sorts due to Ron not being able to stop over the night before, was at least not resisting the morning events.  He'd got out his formal robes (after all, he was now an adult and the head of his family, so it behoved him to behave as such) and was dressed and ready to go well on time, and apart from the usual irritating delay from the portkeys, everything went smoothly.

Until they arrived at the Church of the Holy Bones to discover that the usual occupants of one of the forward pews had been dispossessed of their seats to make way for Lucius, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy.

Harry had a struggle to keep his face blank and smooth as he saluted the altar and passed them to take his own solitary place in the Potter family pew.  He couldn't imagine what they were doing there; the Malfoys supposedly had their own chapel and priest at Malfoy Manor and only attended services elsewhere on special occasions for what could best be described as 'political' reasons.  He felt the hairs come up on the back of his neck - a sure sign that Draco at least was staring at him - but resolutely ignored it in favour of checking that his prayer book, order of service pamphlet and kneeler were all in order.

The service proceeded smoothly in spite of Harry having to do the reading, which he got through without stumbling partly through having been drilled in it previously by Father Marius and partly by addressing himself to the carvings on the font at the opposite end of the church instead of looking at the congregation.

Prayers, responses, sermon, communion, blessing ….  Then they were on their feet and slowly following the rest of the congregation out of the door.

Harry's hopes of speaking to Ron in the grounds before leaving were dashed by Lucius Malfoy's cool, clear voice as he emerged from the porch.

" … not above twenty minutes or so, Father, but my wife has so few opportunities to pay her respects to her forebears.  I'm sure you understand."

Harry understood the overbearing tone of this statement – for it was anything but a request – even without fully understanding the reasons for it.  He did recognised that as the Church of the Holy Bones was under the Black family's patronage, Lucius Malfoy didn't have any more influence here than the regular members of the congregation.  So Father Ignatius was being put upon, although the elderly priest didn't quite seem to realise it yet.  Then Sirius was also emerging from the porch, hat still in hand, his eyes sharp and fixed upon the scene before him.

" _I_ understand that my cousin could have made opportunities to visit the family crypt any time in the last twenty years or so, but hasn't," he remarked coolly.

Malfoy turned to look at him quite casually and apparently unruffled.  "My dear Black," he said coldly.  "Twenty years is a considerable period, and how would _you_ of all people know if my wife had visited this church or not in that time?"

Sirius raised his brows.  "Well, she certainly hasn't made the effort in the past three years or so," he replied.  "And judging by her reluctance to attend weddings and funerals at this church even before I quit my father's roof, I can't imagine that she would have changed her mind in the intervening period.  But I'm sure Father Ignatius can enlighten me to her previous visits."

Father Ignatius, belatedly recognising the tone of this confrontation, cleared his throat and looked anxiously between the two parties. 

"My sons – surely there is no cause to quarrel here?  I have never chided my congregation yet for tardy attendance, nor for receiving Our Lord's most holy gift of communion from another's hands – "

Harry was paying more attention to the behaviour of Narcissa and Draco.  The former stood with her hand through her husband's arm and (to his eyes) an improbable degree of meekness in her manner, although the little veil on her hat was too opaque to judge her expression with any accuracy.  Like Miss Pettifer, she wore a fashionably cut robe (in a dark blue provocatively close to the midnight blue that was the Black family colour) that nevertheless covered her from neck to ankles, and her hat covered all but a smooth loop of her pale blonde hair in the nape of her neck.  Draco, by contrast, wore black robes nearly identical to his father's, and even carried a similar silver-topped cane that he was leaning on now as he listened to the argument with an even more improbable look of pious courtesy.

Looking at him, Harry was suddenly reminded of the choirboys he'd sometimes seen on _Songs Of Praise_ on his uncle and aunt's television.  It took no effort at all to mentally add a white frock and ruff to Draco's costume, and maintaining his expression of polite disinterest became a struggle.

"Kneazle got your tongue, Cissy?" Sirius was saying dryly.  "Don't start being shy at your age!  Feel free to tell us all why you have this sudden urge to pay your respects to our grandparents – especially as our grandfather reputedly took one look at your hair when you were presented to him and swore you couldn't be any descendent of his."  He took a moment to savour the look of freezing venom on Lucius Malfoy's face and the sharp intakes of breath from other parishioners, before adding, "Father Ignatius will no doubt remember how long it took before you were acknowledged and could be baptised."

Harry didn't have to see Narcissa's face to feel the rage that was suddenly radiating from her, and Draco's expression had slipped from piety to something much less complex and more in keeping with his character.  He heard Father Ignatius make a sound of helpless protest, and was conscious himself of a wish that Sirius would shut up.  If he kept this up, there was only one possible way a man like Malfoy could respond.

"That," Malfoy said tightly, "was very foolish."

"Was it?" Sirius replied, sounding amused.  "Well, they do say that only truth hurts.  Since we're on the subject of truth, Malfoy, is it true that your father actually favoured Andromeda for your wife until she eloped with Ted Tonks?"

Father Ignatius seemed to shrink inside his heavy vestments; he clasped his hands together and bowed his head.  The crowd of parishioners had all retreated to what they seemed to feel was a safe distance and were now utterly silent; Harry was aware of the Weasleys among them, although they weren't in his direct line of sight, and of other families of people he vaguely knew from school.  More nearly, he could see Remus still standing in the shadow of the church entrance with Father Marius and knew that despite his appearance of calm he must in reality be very tense.

After a silence that seem to last a hundred years, Malfoy said very quietly, "I see."

"I thought you might," Sirius agreed amiably.

"But fortunately, Black, it is not in my nature to pander to the whims of cretins and madmen, nor yet to provide entertainment for the rank and file of our society."  Malfoy's voice was as cool and calm as ever; Harry wondered if he was the only watcher who noticed the slight quiver of one beautifully manicured hand where it clenched on the silver top of the cane.

Whatever it was that prevented the man challenging Sirius, Harry was willing to bet that it had nothing to do with Malfoy's own wishes right at that moment.

"'The whims of cretins and madmen'," Sirius said in a ruminative tone.  "Interesting choice of words.  Tell me – how _is_ Tom Riddle these days?"

It took Harry a moment or two to remember that most members of the wizarding community were still unaware that Riddle was Lord Voldemort's real name.  That presumably explained the lack of reaction from most of their audience, but Malfoy's own response – he stiffened even more than before, if that was possible – and the reactions of his wife and son were more than adequate.  Narcissa seemed to clutch at her husband's arm and lean closer, while Draco lost what little facial colour he possessed until he looked quite sickly under his pale hair.

After a moment, Malfoy found his voice again, but his tone was now arctic. 

"No, not today, Black," he said softly.  "But rest assured – I have a very long memory and one day soon there will be a reckoning, not only from you but from everyone connected to you."  And his eyes flicked maliciously to Remus and then to Harry's face where they lingered for a long, distasteful moment.

Harry put a little extra effort in to his expression of acute boredom.  

Sirius's sudden smile was brilliant enough to convince their audience of the madness some people still ascribed to him.  "I look forward to it!" he said cheerfully.  "Now, if you're quite finished, Malfoy, we have places to be and people to see – "

"Not so fast," Malfoy interrupted.  "There is still the matter of my wife visiting the crypt."

"What, still harping on about that?  Can't imagine why anyone would _want_ to visit them – they were miserable bunch of stiffs when they were alive, and I doubt they've improved much in the meantime."  Father Ignatius made a distressed sound and Sirius turned to him quickly.  "Sorry, Father, but the truth will out, after all."

"It would appear that there is no level of gross insult to which you will not descend," Malfoy snapped.  "Since you seem to have no regard for your ancestors, please step aside and permit those who do revere them to pay their respects!"

"Ah well, you see, there's a small problem with that," Sirius said.  "As _paterfamilias_ of the House of Black, only I may say who visits the family crypt.  I expect that small detail slipped Cissy's mind."

Narcissa's head reared up at this, and she swept the little veil back from her face with her free hand.  She had surprisingly dark eyes that blazed with an ugly rage.

"If you think I'll bend a knee to _you_ , you brain-addled piece of gaol-bait – "

The tumble of words cut off with an almost inaudible gasp.  Harry wasn't quite sure what happened, but judging by her reaction Malfoy must have savagely pinched the hand tucked through his arm.  Two pale pink spots appeared high on her cheeks and she seemed to bite her lip.

"Do go on," Sirius told her pleasantly.

For a moment she seemed to struggle inwardly, then she lowered her eyes and dropped the tiniest possible curtsey.

"Forgive me, Cousin.  With your permission I should like to take Draco to visit our forefathers and pay my respects to them after so many years."

Sirius took his time considering the request, and Harry wondered if he would drag it out only to refuse.  But finally he said, "Very well.  Father Marius will be glad to accompany the two of you, I'm sure."

Father Ignatius heaved an audible sigh of relief and quickly gestured to the curate to attend to them.  The half-fascinated, half-petrified audience of parishioners began to relax and leave the church grounds.  But when Malfoy would have followed his wife and son back into the church, Sirius barred his way. 

"I gave permission to Narcissa and Draco," he said, still in a pleasant tone.  "Not to you."

Malfoy accepted this with an elegant hint of a shrug and strolled over to a rustic wooden seat that stood against one wall of the ancient church.  He flicked the end of his cloak over it in a finicky way and sat down to wait.

Remus walked up to Sirius and Harry.  "Father Marius says he'll come up to the Manor later for Harry's lesson," he said quietly.

"Good.  You and Harry go home," Sirius replied.  "I'll wait here until the three of them are gone, I think.  Just in case."

Remus gave him a long look, then nodded.  "Come on, Harry."

 

xXx

 

Harry was bursting with questions as they Apparated back into the Manor grounds.  To his surprise, Ron was waiting outside the kitchen door for them, still dressed in his Sunday best and looking excited.

"What was all that about?" he demanded of Harry as Remus unlocked the door.

"I'm not sure," Harry replied.  "Remus, was Sirius _trying_ to make Lucius Malfoy challenge him?"

"That's a question you should be asking him," Remus replied shortly.

"What were they playing at anyway?" Ron put in quickly, before Harry could take umbrage.  "I've never seen the Malfoys at our church before.  And why would Mrs. Malfoy suddenly want to visit a crypt anyway?  A _crypt!_   I don't care if all her family are in there, you'd have to be nuts to visit a crypt!  It's underground and full of dead people!"

"Let's hope it's got whopping great Rat-Eating Funnel Spiders in it, like our wine cellar," Harry said with maliciously.

"What a charming idea," Remus said.

"But he couldn't seriously mean to get into a duel with Malfoy, could he?" Harry asked again.

"I would certainly hope that he wouldn't do so light-heartedly," Remus replied in a tired tone.  He unfastened the front of his robe and tugged it off.  "I'm going to get changed.  You should too.  And Ron – if you're planning to help out in the library later, you might want to nip home and put some different clothes on."

And he effectively ended the conversation by walking out of the kitchen.

"What do you reckon?" Harry asked Ron.

Ron gave him a rueful grin.  "I reckon you're only going to find out by asking Sirius!"

"Great.  What do you want to bet me that Sirius won't tell me either?"

"I'd better nip home and change," Ron said.  Then he surprised Harry by leaning over and kissing him hard.  "That's to make up for last night!"

"I was hoping for a bit more than that last night!" Harry pointed out, but he was grinning too.

"I'll try and make up for it later," Ron promised, his grin widening.  "I'll be back in an hour!"

And he jumped into the Floo.

 

xXx

 

By the time Harry had changed his clothes, Sirius had already returned with Father Marius.  Harry stopped at the bottom of the steps to his tower, not quite on the landing and well out of sight.  There was a heated discussion going on in the living room which he instinctively knew would stop as soon as they realised he was there.

" … possibly want in there?" Remus was asking.

"Did they take anything from any of the vaults?" Sirius's voice asked.

"No – I'm sure I would have seen anything like that and I would have had to intervene if they did, of course."  That was Father Marius's voice.  "I don't recall Mrs. Malfoy even touching any of the tombs.  She pointed out a few of the more notable family members to Draco – he was looking at the inscriptions I think – and then she produced a small bouquet of flowers and left it in front of the memorial at the far end of the crypt.  There was nothing in that either," he added.  "I took a moment to examine it while you and Father Ignatius were seeing them all off the grounds.  By the way, Father Ignatius is terribly shocked.  Expect a visit and a lecture about Christian charity sometime soon."

"Christian charity is his business," Sirius retorted.  "I'll stick to doing what needs to be done to protect my godson.  You're not fool enough to believe that visit was purely what they claimed it to be, are you?  I just can't put a finger on _why_.  If Cissy didn't take something, then what the hell were they there for?"

"I don't understand why you didn't simply say no to the request," Father Marius said rather tentatively.  "It's perfectly within your rights."

"Better to let Cissy walk in there rather than provoke some of her husband's associates into vandalism."  Sirius sounded grim.  "I'm sure Voldemort himself would have no objection to an act of sacrilege, but why bother when you have a family member who stands a thin chance of getting permission to enter without any damage and only mild suspicions raised?  After all, this way we don't _know_ that there's anything suspicious about it, but if they break into the crypt they might as well send us a note telling us that there's something in there that they want."

"And while I'm sure You Know Who has plenty of supporters who wouldn't be bothered about desecrating a church crypt people who are Christians, like Mr. Malfoy, might balk at it," the young priest noted thoughtfully.

"I doubt my cousin Bellatrix would hesitate," Sirius retorted.  "That's irrelevant.  We still need to know if there's something down there that the Death Eaters want."

"Perhaps it's time we looked into the history of the Black crypt at Holy Bones," Remus put in mildly. 

"I thought of that," Father Marius said, "but unfortunately the church records are incomplete.  When I came to Holy Bones at the start of the year, Father Ignatius told me that some of the oldest records were originally stored in an underground room at the presbytery, until there were heavy rains and flooding one year and the wards failed.  The registers of births, deaths and marriages are mostly intact, but a lot of other books and documents were badly damaged or destroyed."

"That's a nuisance, but we're planning to look in the Manor library today and there may be something there.  And by the way, Sirius – the next time you decide to provoke one of Voldemort's henchmen, it'd be nice if you gave me a bit of warning."

"It seemed like an opportunity," Sirius replied, apparently unconcerned.  "It's not every day one of us crosses Lucius Malfoy's path after all, and if we can remove him in advance it would make Harry's job a whole lot simpler."

Harry twitched.  So the attempt to make Malfoy call challenge _had_ been intentional.

"Leaving aside the dangerous arrogance of assuming you'd beat him," Remus replied, "on which we'll have words later! - don't forget that if we pre-empt things too soon, we just give his master time to find and groom someone to replace him.  If it occurs after a flimsy excuse for a quarrel like you were offering him today, it could even be someone who isn't currently on their side.  Don't forget that we're fighting a public relations battle with some of yours and Malfoy's peers."

"Forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn," Father Marius put in.  "But it seems to me that Harry is already fighting a difficult enough battle, one that he stands to lose whether he destroys You Know Who or not.  It won't help him in the slightest if he goes through all of this only to lose much-needed friends in the process and – "

Whatever he would have said next was lost when the Floo jangled.

"That'll be Ron, I expect," Remus said.

 

xXx

 

"Typical," Sirius said, in a tone of the deepest disgust.

The many long windows might need a good scrubbing on the outside, but this made little difference.  One firmly spoken command of _"Lumos generalis!"_ set the many carefully placed chandeliers and sconces alight and brought the first inviting room in the Manor to life before the eyes of its would-be restorers.

"Bloody typical that of all the rooms in this godforsaken pile of bricks, the preservation charms on _this_ one should have been properly placed!"

"Ingrate!" Remus retorted, amused.  "I'm just grateful we don't have to dust in here."

For the library was untouched by time.  Not a speck of dust had settled, no spider had dared string a web between its high shelves, no leather binding or parchment page had developed so much as a spot of mildew.  The atmosphere was level and comfortable and bore no resemblance to any other part of the house; the vast room was untouched by temperatures that were reaching into the eighties outside.  Harry was weirdly reminded of his own house, where whole rooms were preserved exactly as they had been when his parents fled to Godric's Hollow – except that at The Rose House there _was_ life, in the form of the house-elves who had stayed behind to care for it.  The library here smelled of leather and paper and beeswax polish; it was wreathed in strong and precise preserving spells and existed like a little time capsule amid the decayed surroundings of the rest of Black Manor.

"Blimey," Ron said, his eyes wide as he looked around him.  "I reckon we've just found Hermione's ideal home!"

Remus chuckled.  "Let's ensure it's not lethal before anyone starts planning to move in here."

"The room itself won't be dangerous," Sirius said.  "Some of the books might be, though, so be cautious in what you take off the shelves, although the really dangerous ones are chained up in a segregated section up on the second level – "  He pointed to the balconies above.  "And the other danger is from any of my father's little experiments, although we seem to have been remarkably lucky in that respect so far."

"It's probably a lot like snakes in a garden," Remus remarked as they moved further into the room.  "Make enough noise and they can avoid you.  We'll find them lurking in the bedrooms and attics eventually, I expect."

"Something for us all to contemplate when we're having trouble sleeping," Father Marius remarked, and Sirius grinned.

"Where do you reckon your dad's books on Animation are?" Harry asked, as he and Ron scanned the nearest shelves.

"Don't get your hopes up too high," Sirius replied.  "The rarer ones won't necessarily be here and certainly his own research notebooks won't be.  There are other workrooms in this house, remember, besides Grandpapa's potions lab in the cellar."

"There's bound to be something though.  Right?"

"Probably, but you might not find any books as good as Flitwick's in this library – oh, _heck_.  I suppose I'm going to have to update this bloody thing."

Everyone's heads popped around the ends of the shelves they were looking at to see what he was talking about.  Sirius was standing in front of a large, carved ebony stand like a lectern that was placed in an alcove on one wall.  An enormous book bound in midnight blue leather with silver tooling lay on top of it.

"Is that your family chronicle?" Harry asked, interested, and he wandered over to look.

"Yep."  Sirius glanced at him.  "Updated yours, have you?"

"Yeah.  Took me nearly an hour."  Harry peered at the pages.  "That your dad's writing?"

"No, my mother's.  She was a Black as well, you know, from a different branch of the family.  I wonder if she wrote about me and Regulus being sent to Azkaban?"

Harry grinned and turned to Ron.  "Come on, let's see what kind of books are in here."

Leaving Sirius to update the chronicle (probably in language the book had never experienced before, Harry thought), the others spread out and began to poke around the shelves cautiously.  Despite its size, the library bore little resemblance to the school resources that Harry and Ron were used to.  Remus remarked at one point that there must be a catalogue of the contents somewhere, for every book had a number stamped inside its front cover, and he would make finding it his particular task.  Father Marius expressed an interest in finding the Black Family Bible and any books relating to Holy Bones, and that left Harry and Ron free to search for books on Animation.

"Loads of stuff here on potions," Ron remarked at one point.

"Sirius's grandfather was a potions master, like Snape," Harry replied, peering at the books Ron was pointing out.  "Some of these aren't in English."  He looked around.  "Do you reckon all of these are reference books?"

"Who knows?  Pity the shelves aren't labelled, although the different subjects seem to be kept together."

"These are cookery books!  I suppose that makes sense, though."  Harry went to look at the other side of the freestanding shelves.  "Look – the _Encyclopaedia Magica!_ "

"It's a bit bigger than the copy at Hogwarts," Ron observed, looking at row after row of the yellow-backed volumes.  "Must be the full version, wow."

But Harry had already lost interest.  "Want to go upstairs?"

"And have a look at the really dangerous books?  Go on then," Ron said casually.

Harry grinned at him and they headed for the little wrought iron spiral staircase that led up to the second level of the library.

"Watch out for Orpheus," Sirius remarked as they passed him.

"Who?"

"Orpheus Black – bloke in a Tudor ruff.  He used to haunt the segregated section."

"Is he likely to be difficult then?" Harry asked.

"No, but he might start singing and he's got a terrible voice," Sirius replied, turning back to the chronicle."

"Old Pince'd love that," Ron said.  "Singing in a library!"

The upper floor was a broad balcony, with the bookshelves set against the walls and wrought iron railings on the outside in a pattern of vine leaves and snakes.  The floor, as with the library below, was thickly carpeted to deaden sound, and the ceiling above was heavily moulded like the ceilings elsewhere in the house.  There were regular alcoves between the shelves where small tables stood, but as there were no chairs Harry guessed that they were there to rest books on temporarily.  If you wanted to sit down to read, you would either have to sit on the floor or take your books downstairs to the proper study tables set by the windows.  Above each table was a small framed painting, but the occupants were all apparently elsewhere in the house – although the two boys got the distinct impression that they were being watched from someone just beyond the frame's edge, if such a thing was possible.

"So what have we got up here?" Ron asked interestedly. 

The segregated section was on the other side of the room, but Harry was in no hurry.  He took a book off one of the nearest shelves at random and opened it.

"About time!" he said.  "Fiction!"

They made their way slowly around the balcony, but when they finally reached the segregated section – it wasn't there.  Instead, the balcony came to an end over the library entrance; over the railings they could see the other side of the balcony about four feet away, while hanging over the doors was a large, carved wooden representation of the family crest.

"Where'd it go?" Ron said blankly.

"Do you remember that crest being there when we came in?" Harry asked him, perplexed.

"Dunno – I wasn't looking up.  Did we go the wrong way around or something?"

"No – hang on."  Harry reached out and felt the railings at the end of the balcony, then the end of the bookshelves.  Then he reached out precariously over the railings and touched the wooden crest.  "I thought so," he said, satisfied.  "It's an illusion."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." 

Harry grinned at him and before Ron could stop him, he climbed briskly over the railing.  Ron barely had time to flinch before the wooden crest and apparent thin air above the library doors vanished and were replaced by an unbroken length of balcony and shelves.  There was, however, a small gate where the end of the railings had been.

"Bloody good illusion," the redhead said a bit shakily as Harry pulled the gate open for him.

"Not bad," Harry agreed.  "Although if you can feel illusions it's not much use."

"Most people can't feel illusions though."

This was a valid point, although Harry wondered if the ability was as unusual as Ron seemed to think it was.  On the spur of the moment, he leaned over the railings and looked for the others.

"Remus!" he called.

"If I were Madam Pince, you'd have a week of cleaning bathrooms with Mr. Filch for yelling like that," Remus observed, appearing from behind a bookcase and looking up.

"So what?  She's not here!  Remus, can you sense illusions?"

His godfather paused, considering the question.  "Depends on what phase of the moon it is and how unsubtle they are.  Sometimes I can hear a kind of background noise, like a high-pitched whine, and if it's particularly close to the full moon I can smell them."

"That's not the same thing, is it?" Ron pointed out to Harry, leaning on the railings beside him.  "That's part of Remus's werewolf senses."

"Well, I can't hear, smell or otherwise sense illusions," Father Marius put in, joining Remus under the balcony.  "There are spells to uncover them, but they only work if you're looking for an illusion in the first place."

"What about you, Padfoot?" Remus asked, looking over his shoulder.

Sirius paused in writing in the chronicle and looked thoughtful.  "I can tell there's an illusion if it's very strong," he said.  "But to be honest, I don't know if I'd immediately recognise that it's an illusion.  It mostly feels like a mild itch on my skin."

"Yeah, that's what it feels like to me," Harry said.  "The hair comes up on the back on my neck .…" And he put his hand to the back of his head.

"How do you know the difference?" Ron asked him.

"Eh?"

The redhead grinned.  "Well, your hair's always standing on end!"

Sirius barked a laugh and Harry punched Ron's arm none too gently.  "Cheers mate!"

"Anytime!"

They returned to looking over the books, although neither of them was particularly keen to take anything off the shelves for closer inspection.  Some of the books were ancient and enormous and as Sirius had pointed out most of them were chained up.  The titles were predominantly in Latin, which the two boys deciphered laboriously and without being much the wiser when they had done so.  They were less than a quarter of the way through the racks when Remus called up to them that he had located the catalogue, an enormous ledger filled in mostly by hand in a cramped and heavily abbreviated script.

"Does it say anything about books of Animation?" Harry demanded.

"Give me a week or so to read through it and I'll let you know," Remus retorted.  "It doesn't seem to have a subject index, so it'll take a while."

"That's a bit of a bummer," Ron remarked as they turned back to the shelves.

"Better than no catalogue at all, I suppose."

"Do you reckon those other books are listed in it?" Ron said in an undertone.

Harry looked at him blankly.  "What other books?"

His friend's ears were a fiery red.  "The ones in that room we found," he muttered.

Harry felt his own face heat up.  "Well .. they're not in here, so probably not."

"Have you told - ?"

"No!"

There was a pause.  They both pretended to study the shelves intently.

"Do you think we should?" Ron asked finally.

"Why, do you want to?" Harry muttered back.

"I don't _want_ to," Ron admitted, "but I was thinking that maybe we should anyway.  You know?"

"No, I don't know!  Why?"

"Well … that's the sort of thing everyone's really looking for in this house, isn't it?  So it would probably be better to just tell them, so they don't have to waste time looking."

Harry tried to think up an argument to counter this, but he couldn't.  "I'm not going to tell them while Father Marius is here," he mumbled. 

"No!" Ron agreed, looking mildly horrified.  "He's a priest, he wouldn't understand!"

"We'll tell them later, right?"

"Okay." 

The word "later" apparently held some kind of magic, for they both felt a lot better for deferring the moment.

"Is there a library like this at your house?" Ron asked in a more normal voice, and Harry seized on the new topic with relief.

"Yeah, there is!  Well, not as big as this and I don't reckon there are dangerous books in it, but it's pretty good."

"So what else is there?" Ron prodded.  "You haven't said all that much about it so far."

"There's a brilliant tree house," Harry offered, recalling it with sudden enthusiasm.  "Looby showed me – it's in a bunch of trees behind the house, you can't see it at all unless you know it's there."

"Cool!"

"Yeah, I'll show you if we go over there before we go back to school.  There's probably a load of other stuff to find, but I didn't really have enough time.  I found this big cupboard in the study, though, and I reckon my grandfather must have put it there, because if you climb inside it a door appears in the back and it leads into the dressing room off the master bedroom."

Ron chuckled.  "Maybe he just didn't feel like climbing all the stairs when he got old!"

"Probably not.  He was pretty old when he died."  Harry hesitated, then added, "And he was married twice.  Well, I sort of knew that because I met his first wife's sister on my birthday, but Mr. Pettifer explained about her and my grandmother.  My dad had six brothers, see, and they all died from some kind of illness when they were kids, like a wasting sickness.  And after his first wife died, my grandfather didn't want to get married again – he waited ages before he married my grandmother, and then she had a load of miscarriages and two of my uncles died, before my dad was born."

Ron wasn't sure what to say.  "Sounds like it's lucky your dad made it," he ventured.

"Yeah.  He was a bit sickly when he was small but he grew up okay."

"And you're okay."

"My grandfather reckoned that was because my mum was Muggleborn and not related to my dad.  You know – inbreeding."

"I knew my family was different," Ron said.  "I mean, there are loads of us and always have been, but the other purebloods tend to have smaller families, and the First Families _never_ have more than a couple of kids.  But I never thought about why."

Harry thought about this.  "Well, Sirius had one brother and his dad must have had a sister as well as a brother because Snape's a cousin of his as well as Mrs. Tonks and Mrs. Malfoy – "

"Speak of the devil," Ron said suddenly, looking over the railings, and Harry turned quickly.

Snape was standing in the doorway of the library.

"Severus," Harry heard Remus say courteously, and his godfather walked out from behind the bookshelves to greet the other man.  "We weren't expecting you."

Snape gave him an uninterested look and turned to Sirius.  "Black.  I understand you tried to provoke Lucius Malfoy into challenging you this morning."

"Did I?" Sirius asked, feigning surprise.  "I thought we were having a discussion about the rights and ancestry of his wife."

"You are an idiot," Snape said dispassionately.  "Did you honestly think he wouldn't recognise your true intentions?"

"Did he go running straight to his owner?" Sirius asked, amused.  "Did I say nasty words to him and make him look silly?"

"Fool!  Do you think the Dark Lord won't understand what you were trying to do?"

"I think Malfoy's precious Dark Lord will laugh his socks off and ask why Lucius didn't take me up on it," Sirius retorted.  "I doubt Lucius is worth enough to him to care one way or another."

"It may yet come back to bite you," Snape said, his lip curling.  "But that's not why I'm here."

"I'm flattered, cousin.  You're a little early for Sunday tea, but I'm sure you'll be a charming guest – "

"Narcissa Malfoy is pregnant," Snape cut in.

"Urgh!" Ron said before he could stop himself.  "Wasn't Draco enough to put them off?"

Harry jabbed an elbow into his side.  "Prat!"

Snape's eyes tracked up to the pair of them and his sneer became more pronounced, but Remus quickly drew his attention away.

"Well," he said dryly, "that's remarkably pat, don't you think?  All these years and only one son to show for it, but as soon as the question of an heir for Sirius arises Narcissa and Lucius miraculously manage to perform their dynastic duty one more time."

"Does it really matter how 'pat' it is?" Snape demanded.  "Whatever the reason, any child of Narcissa's is a strong candidate for heir to the House of Black."  He gave Remus a nasty smile.  "Unless, of course, Black himself somehow manages to spawn.  What an _appalling_ notion."

But Remus only smiled.  "Thank you for your concern, Severus, but it's really not necessary.  Questions of inheritance are the last thing on our minds at the moment, but if Sirius should happen to find himself in a delicate condition I'll make sure that you're the first to know."

Snape's smile evaporated.  "You revolt me," he snapped and he stalked out of the library.

Ron sniggered softly, unable to stop himself, but although Remus glanced up at the two teenagers and winked, the look he turned on his partner was more solemn.

"Why am I the one who has to get pregnant?" Sirius asked him playfully.

Remus ignored this.  "Narcissa pregnant …." he said.  "Well, that raises the stakes a little, doesn't it?"

"If she _is_ pregnant and not just saying it to see what I'll do," Sirius said scornfully.

"Risky thing to broadcast around, Padfoot.  If it's not true and she's caught out, think what fools the pair of them will look."

"Think what a fool I'll look if I let them pressure me into anything," Sirius retorted.

"It's already well-known that you have to produce an heir somehow, so what does that matter?"

"She knows perfectly well that if I had a choice – "

"Who cares what she thinks, Padfoot?  If she _does_ think for herself, and I haven't been convinced of that since she allowed your father to marry her off to Malfoy."

Sirius muttered something under his breath and disappeared into the bookshelves.  After a moment, Remus followed him.

Ron raised his brows at Harry.  "What was all that about?"

"Same stuff as yesterday," Harry replied in a carefully lowered voice.  "Miss Pettifer offered to have a baby for Sirius."

Ron's eyes nearly popped out at this.  "Really?  Wow, I bet Remus didn't like that."

Harry snorted.  "Actually, he liked it quite a lot – that's why Sirius was so pissed off with him!"

Ron stared at him, then shook his head.  "I give up.  Your family is just _strange_ sometimes."

Harry was tempted to make a sharp remark about Ron's mother, but swallowed it.  After all, Ron did have a point.  "Sirius told me that Remus gets on okay with her and thinks he ought to do it," he muttered.  "But Sirius isn't so sure."

"Wouldn't it be better for him to just get it over with?  Especially if Malfoy's mum is going to squeeze out a rival?"

"I suppose."  Harry pretended to study the chained-up books.  "Miss Pettifer wants to live here though.  Well, not straight away I suppose, but when Mr. Pettifer dies."

Ron considered this for a while.  "There should be loads of room here," he said finally.  "And it's got to be better for Sirius's kid if his mum's living with them.  And if Remus likes her, that's not a problem."

"He likes her _now_ , when she's not living here," Harry pointed out dryly.  "Living with people is different."

"You manage," Ron said, shrugging.  "You just have to deal with them.  And if Sirius and Remus get on with her okay, it won't be a problem, will it?"

"What if I don't like her?  I live here too."

"It's a big enough house – just stay out of her way.  Besides, what makes you think you won't like her?"

"Yeah, right," Harry muttered.

Ron gave him an odd look.  "You don't get to pick and choose your relatives, mate.  That's why you have friends."

"She's not going to be any relative of mine," Harry said sharply.

"If you look at it like that, _Sirius_ isn't any relative of yours," Ron pointed out.

"That's different!"

"How?  Look, what's your problem with this anyway?  You don't even know her, so why are you being so negative?  She seemed all right to me."

"Like your mate Granger, I suppose!" Harry said sharply, resentful of Ron's defence of Miss Pettifer and grabbing at the first thing he could think of to hit back.

"Eh?  What's that supposed to mean?" Ron demanded.

"Pushing in where she's not wanted!" Harry snapped, his voice rising.  "Like bloody Tonks and – "

"I don't think it's anything to do with people _pushing in_ ," Ron interrupted him.  "I reckon you just have a problem with women, mate!"

 

xXx

 

The acoustics of the library were such that the general nature of the argument was quite audible to everyone else in there.

Sirius rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily.  "Another excellent reason not to do this," he said.

"Sirius, this isn't about Harry," Remus said sharply.  "Ron has a very good point – Harry has a bare five minute acquaintance with Miss Pettifer.  He doesn't _know_ her, he's just reacting, so there's a good chance that _anyone_ you contract to will set him off."

"The difference is that she'll be in the house, while someone else – "

"It's not about Harry," Remus repeated.  "You've been presented with an excellent way out of this dilemma, a far better arrangement than any other you're likely to be offered.  Harry will just have to learn to live with the situation, especially as he'll have to deal with the same issue himself sometime.  You can't arrange your life and the lives of others around his whims and temper."

"I don't want him to feel like he's being pushed out of his own home," Sirius said, looking stressed.

"The only person pushing Harry out will be Harry himself – " Remus began, but he was interrupted by the quarrel on the balcony reaching a particularly tempestuous note.  Then Harry stormed down the spiral stairs and out of the library door.

Sirius let out an impatient sigh and looked at Remus.  "Here we go again."

Father Marius quietly walked up behind them.  "That was interesting," he remarked.  "If you don't mind, I think I'll follow him and see if he'll let me talk to him."

"If you like," Remus said wryly, "but I think you're a lunatic for it!"

The priest grinned.  "All part of the vocation!"  He followed Harry out of the library at a more leisurely pace.

When Sirius and Remus peered around the end of the bookcase, Ron was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, looking despondent.

"I don't seem to be handling him very well," he said, when the two men joined him.

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked, surprised.

"Well, you know.  I know you all expect me to – "

"Stop right there," Remus interrupted him.  "Ron, no one is _expecting_ anything of you!" 

"Well _I_ am," Ron said wryly.  "He's my mate and I want to help him, but I'm no bloody good if I keep having rows with him."

"You're expecting too much of yourself.  Besides, picking quarrels can be an effective way of making people back away from things you don't want to deal with.  It wouldn't surprise me if he's banking on the fact that you don't really want to fight with him."

"I dunno," Ron said dubiously.  "He's usually pretty good at just _avoiding_ talking about stuff."

"Isn't he though," Sirius agreed, looking wry.  "But once you know he's avoiding something, you can call him on it, can't you?  Isn't that what happened up there?"  He gestured up to the balcony and smiled at Ron's sudden flush when he realised they'd been overheard.  "And when you called him on it, he picked a fight."

"It's not that I think he hates women," Ron said, embarrassed.  "I mean, he's mostly all right even with Hermione.  But sometimes he just seems to get a funny mood on about something, and he lets rip and all this stuff comes out …."

"Is it all women, do you think?" Remus asked.  "Or just particular ones?"

Ron rubbed the side of his nose reflectively.  "Dunno really.  He's not the kind of bloke who thinks all women are tarts and slags or a waste of space, if that's what you mean.  And I know there's this thing with me and him – " he made a vague gesture with his hands, "but I don't think that means he goes for blokes a hundred percent.  He's had girlfriends and so have I.  But this is different."

Sirius suppressed a smile.  "Having girlfriends doesn't mean a lot, you know, Ron."

"Very true.  Even I had a couple of girlfriends when we were at school," Remus said, the corner of his mouth quirking, "and as Harry's father once pointed out, I'm a _serious_ poofter with no hope of remission."

Ron looked at them both, surprised, then grinned a little.

"That's better," Remus said encouragingly.  "Try not to let things like this get you down and remember that he's not your sole responsibility."

"And remember that just because you're involved with him doesn't mean you have to agree with him or let him walk all over you," Sirius added.

"I get that, but it's easy to say it," Ron said.  "And I can sort of see what his problem is really, with Miss Pettifer at least."  He gave Sirius a nervous look, but the other man only looked encouraging.  "He's pretty possessive with people, I think.  People he likes.  I think he's just scared that she'll change things here somehow, especially since there's a baby involved.  Change can be scary."

"It's one of life's constants, unfortunately," Remus said.

"But it's scarier for Harry, isn't it?" Ron said, looking at him.  "I think he feels like things in his life are … I don't know, _temporary_ maybe.  His mum and dad died and left him without a proper home.  His aunt and uncle didn't want him and made him sleep under the stairs.  And you've made this his home, but I don't know that he actually sees it that way.  Then there's that big house he inherited, and I _know_ he doesn't see that as his home – he told me that all that Henry Potter the Whatever stuff felt like he was pretending to be someone else."  He shook his head.  "I think part of him doesn't believe it's all real and that maybe it'll all be taken away from him again.  And I don't know how to make him see it differently."

"That's because you can't make him see it," Sirius told him.  He sat down on the stairs beside the teenager.  "It's something we have to keep showing him and hope that one day he works it out for himself."

"It's not just that," Ron said.  "There's the You-Know-Who stuff as well, and that just makes everything worse.  It scares me because I know he really believes he's going to die and so maybe there's this part of him that thinks that none of it matters anyway."

Remus exchanged worried glances with Sirius.  This wasn't exactly new information – Harry had said things before that suggested he wasn't optimistic about his chances if he went up against Voldemort again – but that he should have said it to Ron, and in such a way, was unwelcome.

"But do you think he wants to die?" Sirius asked.

Ron gave him a confused look.  "No, of course not – why would he?"

"Because you make it sound as though he's accepted it as something inevitable.  It's not a big step from there to thinking that dying is a reasonable option, especially at your age."

"Well I don't think he wants to die at all."  Ron managed to find a smile.  "And even if he thinks it's going to happen, I don't think he'll just give up.  He's too bloody stubborn to give up without a fight."

"That's something," Remus said, privately relieved.  "Something to work with, anyway.  That is, if you want to.  I wouldn't blame you if you found this all a bit much to deal with, Ron, and backed out."

"I'm not going to do that."

"I told you – there are no expectations here.  It's very helpful to have you on Harry's side, but it's not a do-or-die thing that leaves no room for ordinary arguments and break-ups.  I hope that _won't_ happen, of course, but you're both still young, you know, and sometimes it's inevitable."

"Didn't happen to you," Ron pointed out wryly.  "Harry told me you've been together since you were our age."

"Well – yes, but we're a rather different case," Remus said, and Sirius chuckled.

"Hasn't stopped us having some brilliant fights over the years," he told the teenager, amused.  "Including a couple of black eyes and a broken nose."

"Harry's father got the broken nose," Remus confided to Ron.  "He tried to intervene which, for future reference, is always a bad idea with a werewolf and especially so just before a full moon."

But Sirius could see that none of this was really distracting Ron from his worries.

"Look," he said quietly, "don't let him get to you.  I know it's difficult – believe me, I know! – but you have to learn to roll with the punches.  Accept that he's moody and can't help it, accept that he probably won't change, and learn to deal with it.  A lot of the time he doesn't mean half of what he says, you know, and I'm willing to bet that he'll show up for dinner a bit sulky but ready to mend fences.  Okay?"

Ron shrugged and nodded.  "Okay."

"Good man," Remus said.

"Um … there's something we need to tell you both later," Ron said a little guiltily.  "But I reckon it should wait till he's not pissed off."

"If one of you is pregnant, tell us now so that we can have a stiff drink."

Ron snorted, cheering up.  "Not likely!  We haven't gone that far yet."

"That's an image to take to bed with me tonight," Sirius remarked, amused, as he got up.

 

xXx

 

It was hard to say whether Harry would have got over his bad temper so quickly or not, had it not been for a stroke of luck half an hour later.  He emerged from the gardens and his talk with Father Marius still looking out of sorts, to find Sirius, Remus and Ron drinking tea with Mr. Pettifer in the kitchen.  Harry's mentor was there to give the scheduled duelling lesson, which was just the thing to work off linger bad temper, and it left Sirius and Remus with time to go back and start investigating what should be done to Gaius Black's study.

By the time Sirius returned to summon them to dinner, the two teenagers were exhausted, sweating and thoroughly pleased with themselves, and Mr. Pettifer seemed remarkably invigorated by the exercise.  He was pleased to accept an invitation to have dinner with them and took great interest in their descriptions of the library and its contents.

"I find it gratifying to discover that _some_ consideration was given to preserving the more valuable contents of this house," he remarked.  "I should imagine there are a number of articles of interest on the shelves, Black, as I know for a fact that your father imported one or two very rare volumes indeed.  Have you discovered the catalogue?"

"I have, but it'll take some deciphering," Remus said.  "It's in the sitting room, actually - perhaps you'd like to take a look after dinner."

"I should certainly be interested," Pettifer agreed.  "For curiosity's sake, I would like to know if certain articles I know were in Mercurius Black's possession have been recorded as part of his collection."

Sirius raised his brows.  "Anything we should be looking out for, sir?"

"I imagine you know something of your grandfather's predilections?"

"Wine, women and gambling?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"I never quite understood that," Sirius remarked.  "He was supposedly the one who refused to fix the bath-house when the charms on it failed, on the grounds that it was indecent, but I know he was a ...."  He paused, visibly searching for an acceptable word to use in front of their guest.

Pettifer looked amused.  "He was a rake and a roué.  But towards the end of his life he suffered some uncomfortable ailments as a result of his lifestyle – perhaps you remember him so - and became conscious of his mortality as men of his stamp often do.  His concerns over meeting his Maker were at the forefront of his mind when he closed your bath-house, I would imagine."

"You think he may have accumulated some indelicate books, sir?" Remus asked, interested.

"I think it entirely probable."

Harry and Ron exchanged uncomfortable glances.  This seemed to be their cue to confess.

"Um ... Sirius," Harry began, studying his fork to avoid looking at his godfather.  "After the full moon we were checking out the study and found that dog-thing, remember?"

"So you did," Sirius said, eyeing him.  "What about it?"

"Well … it got away from us and ran upstairs and, um ...."

"It disappeared through a hidden door in the wall," Ron put in.

Remus caught Sirius's eye and hastily looked away before he could betray his sudden amusement.

"I'll be pretty disappointed if you decided not to investigate," Sirius warned them mildly.

"We got the door open," Harry admitted.  "And there was this room behind it – "

" - Full of stuff," Ron finished for him, making what he clearly thought was a clean breast of the matter.

"Books?" Mr. Pettifer asked calmly.

"Books and ... other stuff," Harry replied rather guardedly.

"You discovered a secret museum?"

"What's that?" Harry asked, surprised by the term.

Pettifer sat back.  "Our ancient ancestors, Henry, were robust peoples to whom sexual matters were an unremarkable commonplace.  Some of our more recent forebears, by contrast, were prey to all kinds of foolish prudery.  When ancient Roman and Greek artefacts of an indelicate nature were discovered in archaeological sites such as Pompeii, it was deemed necessary to protect the moral sensibilities of society by secreting them away in places where only certain individuals - scholars and gentlemen of a certain persuasion - might have access to them.  Such collections became known as 'secret museums', and it is quite common to find rooms hidden in wizard houses where gentleman wizards of, shall we say, _sophistication_ would cherish their artefacts and share them with associates of a similar stamp.  Mercurius Black was just such a man and it comes as no surprise to discover that he possessed a secret museum."

"There's a statue ...."  Ron looked disturbed.

"Undoubtedly some articles are rather distressing when first encountered," the old man agreed kindly.  "Our ancestors were _very_ robust about these things."

"I'm not a prude!" Harry said defensively.

"There's a big gulf between being a prude and being a degenerate," Remus remarked.

"We'd better take a look after dinner," Sirius said, containing his amusement with some difficulty.  "Would you care to join us, sir?"

"I would be disappointed to be left out," Pettifer admitted, gratified.

 

xXx

 

"Not exactly something you could keep on the drawing room mantelpiece, is it?" Sirius remarked, struggling to remain objective in the face of Pan and his goaty companion.

"At least Mercurius had the decency to admit it was a copy," was Mr. Pettifer's opinion, as he put a small pair of spectacles on his nose to read the label.  "The original is still in Naples, of course, but I have seen several disappointing copies that are claimed to be genuine.  This is a fair reproduction."

"But it's Pan and a goat!" Ron protested.  "Isn't that ... unnatural?"

"It is a criminal, unnatural and morally repugnant act for a man," Pettifer agreed.  "Pan, however, is manifestly _not_ a man and in the eyes of our ancestors was a god.  The gods may stray where mere men must not, my boy."

"Here are the books," Remus broke in, holding up his magic lamp so he could study the glass-fronted bookcase.  "Not what I was expecting - what sort of thing do you think they are?"

"I would hazard that they are erotic literature, although at least two of the books I know Mercurius to have purchased were workbooks of certain charms, rituals and potions - yes, this is one of them here."  Pettifer shook his head.  "Intriguing, but also highly illegal, Black.  They really should be surrendered to the authorities.  One in particular carries a three month term in Azkaban should it be discovered in your possession."

"I'd like to say that three months is nothing," Sirius remarked, "but it isn't.  All the same, I don't fancy handing over books like these without absolute certainty of what'll happen to them.  Speaking as a former Auror, I know a little too much about the procedures for confiscating items like illegal books.  Depending on who deals with them, they'll be destroyed at best or end up on the black market at worst."

"True," Pettifer acknowledged.  "There is a third option, however.  I am opposed to the destruction of books simply because of their contents.  After all, a book is innocent of crime; the reader must always be responsible for the actions he takes having read the contents."

Hearing this, Harry wondered if he should mention the less-than-innocent diary of Tom Riddle, but Mr. Pettifer was already continuing. 

"In the case of these books, the knowledge of the potions and charms therein has already been in circulation for some centuries - such things rarely die or are forgotten.  But the _antidotes_ are another matter.  You will note that counter-charms and antidotes are more easily forgotten than the magics they reverse.  To destroy a volume which may contain valuable information to counter the effects of Dark magic is irresponsible.  There are reputable collectors who are licensed to store books such as these under strict controls.  If you wish it, Black, I will make discreet enquiries and see if such a collector might be induced to take these books off your hands."

"I doubt they're the only illegal books in this house by a long shot," Remus remarked.  "What else is in here?  And perhaps there's a hook on the ceiling somewhere so that we don't have to mess around holding lamps .…"

"Yes, there's one," Sirius said, holding his wand up to illuminate a tarnished brass hook almost directly above the china tea service that had destroyed Harry's composure on his previous visit.  Remus levitated his lamp up to it and the room was suddenly bathed in enough light to see everything reasonably clearly.  There was a startled pause.

"Oh dear," Remus said.

"Ah …." Sirius added blankly.

"This is certainly one of the larger collections I have heard of," Mr. Pettifer remarked, impressed.

What followed closely resembled Ron and Harry's own first encounter with the room.  Of the five of them, Mr. Pettifer was by far the least disturbed by what he saw; he seemed to view everything from a scholarly remove, displaying no apparent disgust and little more than occasional lofty amusement.  His enjoyment of everyone else's reactions was another matter though.

"Some of this is in very poor taste," he commented judiciously at one point.

"That's putting it mildly," Sirius agreed, surveying the chair that had caused Harry and Ron so much hilarity previously.

The two teenagers squirmed.  What had been smuttily amusing when they were on their own was rendered acutely embarrassing in the company of three adults, especially as one of those adults was an elderly aristocrat.  The fact that Pettifer was as poised and dignified as he had been in the drawing room of The Rose House on Harry's birthday somehow only made it worse.  They could probably have shared a laugh with Remus and Sirius, but it was difficult to enjoy a snigger in the company of someone who insisted on talking about the artistic merits and – horribly – the intended uses of some of the objects. 

Judging by the way Remus covered his mouth with one hand and Sirius kept smiling vaguely and scratching the back of his neck, they didn't feel very comfortable with it either.  But just as Harry was beginning to seriously contemplate celibacy as a viable lifestyle, Mr. Pettifer realised that it was getting very late and his granddaughter would be wondering what had become of him.  He was ushered to the kitchen Floo and the remaining four all heaved guilty sighs of relief as he disappeared.

There was a pause when the green flames had died down in the grate.  No one seemed quite sure what to say.

"You know, I reckon I could have lived a happy life without hearing old Pettifer say the word "fellatio"," Sirius said finally.  "And what the devil is an _olisbos?_   I thought I was pretty knowledgeable, but I never heard that word before.  Looked like a dildo to me."

"It wasn't the _word_ that bothered me," Remus retorted.  "It was the fact that he insisted on describing what you do with it.  I think the next time we enter that room, I'll put the Floo Directory down the back of my trousers, just in case."

Ron let out an odd hiccupping snort that drew the others' eyes to his pink, embarrassed face - and suddenly they all fell about laughing.

"But really," Sirius managed, when they eventually calmed down again, "what the devil are we supposed to do with that room?  Lock it up and forget about it?  Auction the contents - if they don't get me shut up in Azkaban again first?"

"Open it to the public?" Remus suggested, trying to keep a straight face.  "Charge a Galleon per head entrance fee ...."

"You could hand out little packets of hand-wipes at the door as people leave," Harry added.  "Stamp them with the family crest and everything.  _Toujours Pur._ "

Sirius nearly laughed himself into a coughing fit.  "Stop it!" he scolded when he'd got his breath back.

"Seriously, though, we have to decide what we're doing because Pettifer's clearly hoping to come back and catalogue the contents, if they haven't been already," Remus said.  "And don't forget that Andromeda is supposed to be joining us tomorrow for more house cleaning.  Which reminds me of something else.  While sorting out the ground floor has been very helpful, it's about time we started looking at some of the rooms on the upper storeys - bedrooms in particular.  If this house is going to be used as an Order base in preference to Grimmauld Place, we need more than just meeting and training rooms.  People are going to need places to crash occasionally and Dumbledore has talked about creating refuges for people who need to hide from the Death Eaters."

"You're not fooling me," Sirius retorted.  "I can read your mind, Moony Lupin, and it has the word "nursery" scrolling across it as we speak."

"Apartments for your heir are also an important consideration," Remus agreed mildly, "although I could just leave the grumpy old dog out of the equation and go directly to Andromeda for advice, I suppose."

Harry frowned over his cup of tea.

"The old nursery's on the second floor, next to the servants' quarters," Sirius said in a resigned tone.  "Bedrooms are on the second floor too - family wing, guest wing and relatives' wing.  The first floor has the drawing room, dining room and portrait gallery, plus a load of other little saloons like the Music Room and Ladies' Solar."

"I don't suppose that means we dare skip the first floor though.  Heaven knows what's lurking in your mother's drawing room."

"More dirt and more decay," Sirius said.  "And more shrieking ancestors in the portrait gallery.  There's a full-length portrait of my father there and one of my grandfather with a bust of Pompey the Great."

Ron looked interested at this.  "We've got a photo of my great-granddad with a bust of Pompey the Great," he said.  "It was taken in front of one of those stupid fake background pictures of a formal garden."

"It must have been a fashionable setting at the time," Remus agreed.  "There's a similar photo of my grandparents with poor old Pompey and the fake background."

"Dunno about the fake background," Harry said, "but there's a sketch of my Great-grandpa Fitzcoeur with a bust of some Roman bloke.  Mr. Pettifer showed me - he says my grandmother did it."

"I'd say Pompey got around a bit then," Sirius said with a grin.  "But back up a second.  If necessary we can close up that hidden room for the time being while we get on with more important stuff.  But if Alastor Moody ever comes here and gets his magic eye on the wall, then the cat's out of the bag.  And a more important consideration is what's behind the, er, secret museum.  God, that makes it sound like something upmarket instead of Grandpapa's enormous porn stash."

"What do you mean, what's behind it?" Remus asked.

"Well these two - " Sirius nodded to Harry and Ron, "saw one of my father's creatures disappearing into it, but there's no sign of it in there now.  So where did it go?  I reckon there might be another entrance there to one of the old man's hidden workrooms, and if that's the case we need to find it.  Could be all sorts of nasties lurking."

"Let's hope that the entrance _isn't_ inside that room," Remus said dryly.  "Call me a coward, but I don't fancy having to tramp through there with half the Order while we sort out the interesting experiments your father decided to keep locked away in a hidden room.  Besides, even without the legal implications I don't think we should be showing off the contents to just anyone.  Some of that stuff is a bit … depraved."

Sirius sat back in his chair, eyeing his partner interestedly.  "What did Pettifer say about these secret museums?  Something about them being set up to protect the moral sensibilities of a prudish society?"

"I don't care how lofty and high-minded he sounded while he was talking about it, Sirius," Remus said crossly.  "If you think he would let his granddaughter anywhere _near_ that collection, you've got bats in your belfry.  After all, would _you_ be comfortable letting Nymphadora or Emmeline see it?"

"I'm not comfortable seeing it myself!" Sirius retorted.  "But if the workroom door is in there, I don't see what else we can do.  Unless you think flinging an illusion of chintz armchairs and a nice set of doilies over the top of it will fool anyone!"

Harry looked at Ron and rolled his eyes. 

"Hm," Remus said neutrally and let it go.


	11. Chapter 11

arry awoke very early the following morning. 

Ron hadn't stopped over; he was exercising an understandable caution with his mother and for once Harry hadn't protested much.  He was used to getting turned on by the most commonplace things, but something about the contents of Mercurius Black's 'secret museum' was uncommonly off-putting.  Sex, Harry thought, was supposed to be a healthy, fun sort of activity.  He could see the humour in some of the exhibits – the tea service and phallic wind-chimes, for example – but the more exotic objects and contraptions were disturbing to him.  He was reminded unpleasantly of the violent, orgiastic nightmares Voldemort liked to send him sometimes.

Too restless to linger in bed, he got up, showered and dressed, and wandered downstairs.  The kitchen clock said that it wasn't yet six o'clock, so he got himself a glass of milk and wondered what he could do to occupy himself until breakfast.  Working on his puppets didn't interest him.  His school work was long done.  But there was no reason why he couldn't study anyway ….

The Black library held a peaceful sense of expectancy when he entered it.  At this time of day the sun was at the wrong angle to filter through the long windows, so Harry lit the lamps and pondered where to start. 

While he was inclined to agree with Sirius about the probable location of Gaius Black's most useful books on Animation, that didn't mean that there couldn't be others here in the main library.  Professor Flitwick possessed a whole bookcase full, after all, some that were more commonly known than others.  With that in mind, Harry methodically began to work his way down the shelves, scanning promising titles and making note of the names of authors who might possibly have something to say on the matter.  He started with the _Encyclopaedia Magica_ , checking out its disappointingly limited section on Animation, and moved on from there.

By the time Sirius entered the library, carrying a plate of toast and mug of tea for him, it was nearly seven-thirty and Harry was settled at one of the reading desks in the window with four or five large books stacked beside him and another open in front of him.

"We wondered where on earth you'd got to!" his godfather said, smiling.  "I had to turn into Padfoot to sniff you out!"

Harry accepted the breakfast with a grin.  "Thanks, Sirius.  I'll try not to get crumbs and butter on anything."

"You're welcome.  You must have been up early though – what have you found?"

"A few books on Animation.  I saw some of them in Professor Flitwick's collection, but this one's new."  He showed Sirius the one he was reading.  "I don't know how useful it's going to be, though."

"You ought to get Flitwick to approve it before you start trying anything in there," Sirius warned.  "There are a lot of dodgy, badly researched books on magic on the market, you know, and while I don't think my father would have kept any that were actually inaccurate, there's no saying how misleading some of it could be.  I still think the best of them will be in his workroom when we find it."

"Can I take any I find back to Hogwarts with me?"

"Of course.  Just let Moony have a list of the titles, so he knows where they are when he deciphers the catalogue."

"Thanks."

"No problem.  Are you going to stay here for a while?  We're just having breakfast and doing a few chores before Andromeda arrives."

"I'd like to read a bit more before Ron gets here," Harry said.  "What are we doing today?  Will you tell Mrs. Tonks about that room?"  He was genuinely curious.

Sirius hesitated.  "Wouldn't surprise me if she already knows it exists," he admitted.  "No, we thought we should finish off checking this floor before we go upstairs.  There's a reception room next to the ballroom and the entrance hall in particular needs to be looked at.  It got a lot of damage when the glass lights above the doors were broken, and we need to see if the floor needs replacing.  But Andromeda won't be here till nine at the earliest, so take your time.  I'll send Ron along if he arrives first."

When Ron came to find Harry, it was just after nine and he was carrying two more mugs of tea and holding a piece of folded parchment between his lips.

"Found something good?" he asked, when he'd set the mugs down on the desk and taken the parchment out of his mouth.  "This is for you, by the way.  Hedwig brought it while Remus was making the tea.  It's from Mr. Pettifer – there was one for Sirius too."

"Thanks."  Harry closed the book he was reading and pushed it aside, accepting the note.  He broke the amber-coloured wax seal and unfolded it.  "He apologises that he won't be here to help us look for more hidden rooms this morning but he'll be over this afternoon for another duelling lesson."

Ron chuckled.  "I reckon he'll be dead disappointed if he's not here when we _do_ find more hidden rooms!"

Harry grinned as he folded the note up again.  "Yeah.  He's a game old bloke – I like him.  Even if yesterday _was_ dead embarrassing."

"Yeah, but it's pretty nifty that he wasn't boring about it, you know.  Most people'd do their nut if they found a room full of porn."  Ron perched on the edge of the desk.  "So what are you reading?"

"I found a few books about Animation, but I don't know how useful they'll be."  Harry tapped the cover of the one he'd been reading when Ron arrived.  "Most of the stuff in this one is illegal, I reckon.  It's about making golems.  But it does explain some of the stuff Flitwick was telling me about making joints move.  There's some really interesting bits about how to make a golem or simulacrum move properly _without_ joints too.  Golems are made from mud or clay, you know."

"I didn't, but I know now," Ron said, interested.  "How can it be better to use something without joints?"

"That's the good bit.  It's something to do with the consistency of the mud.  You don't let it dry properly – there's some kind of special drying charm that leaves it sort of mobile.  But the really interesting bit is that you don't have to be an Animator to make it work."  Harry sat back, his eyes unfocussed with thought.  "There's a whole section of animating that relies entirely on charms and stuff – even potions and rituals.  I reckon it's Dark magic, but it's interesting to know about."

"You want to be careful with that stuff," his friend warned, troubled, and Harry's eyes suddenly snapped back into focus.

"Yeah, I know.  But if I didn't know about it I wouldn't know to expect it, would I?  Anyway, you make some types of golem work by writing runes on part of the model – the back of the neck, or the forehead, or the back of the hand.  It depends on what you want them to do."

"And how do you stop them again?"

"You wipe the runes off.  Anyone can do that, though, which is why it's not as good as pure Animation.  I don't know how you're supposed to get close enough to wipe a rune off the back of its neck if it's trying to kill you, of course, but I suppose it's better than having no idea at all, isn't it?"

"Are all these books about stuff like that?" Ron asked uneasily.

"I haven't had a proper look at them all yet," Harry replied.  "I was reading this one because golems are the kind of thing I could imagine Voldemort making use of.  It's the ultimate servant, isn't it?  Not unpredictable like a person and it wouldn't want anything in return."

"Bill told me that the last time Voldemort was powerful he used dead bodies," Ron said.  "Do you think that's true?"

"Inferi," Harry said at once.  "Yeah, I heard Theo Nott nattering on last year, when there were all those rumours about Voldemort using them.  I don't know, though.  I suppose if he was in a hurry and needed to use something like that, or if he wanted to really scare people, he might."  He thought about it for a minute or two.  "The downside to that," he said suddenly, "is that getting hold of a lot of dead bodies in one go is a bit of a problem.  It might be okay if you only need a couple, but if you needed more where would you get them?"

Ron looked a bit queasy, but said, "A graveyard?"

"But the bodies won't be intact," Harry pointed out.  "Not unless they've been embalmed really well or had a preserving spell put on them.  Do wizards embalm bodies?"

"Um … I don't think so, unless you're rich and putting them in a crypt, like Sirius's family.  And yours probably.  But I don't think my grandfather was embalmed.  The undertakers just used a spell."

"You'd have to take anything like a preserving spell off to animate a body," Harry said frankly.  "And you know what happens if a preserving spell's been used for too long on something that can rot."

"It disintegrates," Ron said, looking really queasy now.

"And embalming won't make the joints stay together.  So taking bodies out of a graveyard or crypt wouldn't work.  You could raid a hospital mortuary I suppose, but it would have to be one of the really big Muggle ones to get lots of bodies and that would draw a lot of attention."

"So you'd have to kill a lot of people all at once to get a lot of bodies in one go."

"Yeah.  That'd draw attention too, and some of them would resist and it'd become a bit of a mess, even if it was Muggles you attacked.  And even then the bodies wouldn't be good for much for very long."

"Okay, I get the point," the redhead said.  "Inferi are only useful in small numbers for something specific.  But golems could be useful.  I don't find that very reassuring."

"It's Voldemort we're talking about," Harry pointed out.  "Reassuring people about anything to do with him is pointless – worse than pointless, in fact.  It's just a very bad idea."

"Yeah," Ron agreed glumly.  "Look, this is depressing.  Let's go and see what the others are up to, yeah?"

"Okay."  Harry drained his tea, put a marker in his book, and followed his friend out of the library.

 

xXx

 

When Sirius and Remus had first opened up the house over three years previously, they were obliged to enter the building by the main doors in order to reset the household wards.  At some point the great fan-shaped stained glass window above the doors had been broken (probably during a heavy storm) letting in wind, rain and debris.  Sirius had secured it again and they used a variety of drying and repair spells to try and halt the decay, but without more money than either of them had possessed at that time there had been little point in even considering doing more.  They weren't planning to live in the main part of the house after all, so restoration wasn't a big issue.

It was an issue now and faced with the remains of the damage, Sirius had to struggle to find a sense of optimism. 

The main entrance hall was a vast space flanked on one side by a reception room (for visitors who weren't expected to stay for very long), a cloakroom and small (well concealed) bathroom, and a large 'garden room' on the other side which had been turned into the living room when Sirius and Remus had moved in.  A grand set of stairs faced the main doors and led upstairs to the portrait gallery, a formal receiving room, two small 'themed' saloons and the Music and Ladies' Sun Rooms in the two towers at either corner of the building

In common with many other wizard houses of its era, the hall had a tiled floor laid out in a repetitive fan pattern that mimicked the shape of the fan window above the doors.  The main body was in black tiles and there was a border set about a foot inside the walls, of a Greek key pattern picked out in light brown and white tiles.  The walls themselves were painted an ugly olive green (now darkened with time and filthy with mould), while the skirtings were a dark brown.  The paint on both plaster and wood was peeling, and the tiled floor was cracked and covered in dirt and moss.  _Unlike_ other buildings of the era, the bottom set of stairs were made of polished, heavily carved wood rather than marble or another decorative stone; it was dark enough to be ebony, but was more likely a less costly wood stained to mimic it.  It was here that the worst damage had occurred, for the creeping damp had allowed rot to take hold in the steps and railings and Remus's spells when they first arrived at the house had merely halted it, not repaired the damage.  The entire hall area smelled of decay.

"I think I can safely say we shan't be approaching the first floor from this direction," Andromeda remarked, after a cursory inspection. 

"We can use the spiral stairs from the reception room," Sirius replied after a moment.  "The entrances to the stairs on the other side are all bricked up and warded for now, because we used the ladies' solar on the first floor to make a bathroom and the second floor is Harry's bedroom."

"Bit of a mess, isn't it?" Ron said quietly to Harry.  He gave the bottom step a gentle kick and grimaced when the wood crumbled.

"We're going to need to set up barriers around these stairs for people's safety until we can get someone in to survey the damage and tell us what needs to be done," Remus said.  "I imagine the floor will need examining too – it's safe enough to walk on at the moment, but it can't stay like this if the front entrance comes into common use.  I'd be astonished if a good portion of the tiles aren't loose."

Sirius sighed.  "Okay, let's get the front doors open and let some proper light in.  A bit of fresher air wouldn't hurt either."

Harry went to help him.  He was expecting a struggle with the doors, for they would surely have taken the brunt of the weather damage after the window broke, but he reckoned without the spells wizards routinely set on external doors to increase their resistance.  The paintwork might be in a poor way and the locks and hinges very stiff, but only from ordinary neglect; as soon as Sirius set his hand to them, the locks slowly and creakily unfastened themselves and it was nothing to pull them open.

Sunlight poured inside for the first time in more than three years, revealing the full extent of the damage and somehow making everything look even older and more run-down than before.  There were small chairs and tables with rotting upholstery and mouldy varnish, picture frames on the walls containing canvases so badly damaged that any occupants had long since fled to other portraits elsewhere in the house, and, high above the stairs and festooned with cobwebs, were more dull and tarnished chandeliers.  Windows along the front face of the hall had been shuttered on the outside and on the inside the embrasures were draped with heavy green curtains that were so laden with dust and mould that they were tearing off the rings that held them to the rails above.

Judging by the scuttling noise and a sudden rush of movement, the daylight had also displaced a variety of vermin, in spite of the fumigation a few days before.  Harry noticed the droppings everywhere as he and Sirius went back into the hall.

So did Ron.  "Rosebud!" he called, and everyone watched in bemusement as the left pocket of his jeans suddenly bulged and stretched before disgorging from the narrow opening a fully-grown kneazle.  She dropped lightly to the floor, shook herself from whiskers to tail and looked around, ears perked. 

"See what you can find, girl!" Ron encouraged her, and she began to sniff the little piles of droppings.  Within minutes she was bounding in and out of the window curtains, scattering mice, much to the dismay of Andromeda.  Ron looked pleased.

"She's a pretty good mouser," he told Harry.  "Mum's dead chuffed with her."  As if to prove it Rosebud pounced on a mouse, grabbed it by the back of the neck and gave it a sharp upward flick.  Dead mouse.  She presented it to Ron proudly and went after another.

"I could have used her help a few years ago," Sirius remarked to the general air, and he shook himself.  "Okay – the rodent situation seems to be under control.  Let's put up some barriers and clear as much of the rubbish as we can.  Then we can take a look upstairs."

They set to work.  Harry and Ron set about unlatching all the shutters on the windows while Remus began removing the curtains by the simple expedient of ripping them off their railings.  Meanwhile Sirius helped Andromeda to remove the chairs and tables from the hall, tossing them out onto the driveway.

"I'm starting to panic a bit," he quietly admitted to her.  "Once we've finished clearing out the rubbish and curses, we'll still have to do repairs and decorate.  And we have to get these stairs replaced ….  It's a mammoth job, it'll probably bankrupt me, and for what?  Is it really going to be worth it?"

Andromeda gave him a measuring look for a moment.  "Do you truly want my opinion?"

Sirius shrugged and gave her a faint smile.  "Why not?  You're the only member of my family I really acknowledge these days, you've a right to an opinion."

"It's worth it," she said bluntly.  "Take my advice, Sirius.  Stop looking at this as one big problem to be overcome and start looking at it as a series of projects to be undertaken over a period of time.  Consider which of the projects is the most urgent and tackle that one first.  Then the next.  And the next.  This hallway is not important.  Get the damage surveyed and the stairs ripped out to prevent the rot spreading, then close it up safely until you're ready to deal with it.  A lot of the occasional rooms won't be needed, so remove all the furnishings, ensure that they're dry and sound and will stay that way, then close them up until they _are_ needed.  Only work now on the areas that are necessary.  The work we're doing now, to ascertain the level of damage, is important but don't let it mire you down.  I suspect the first floor will end by being closed up in the main – let's do a very quick survey of it and move on to the important areas on the second floor, because you _will_ need bedchambers."  A sly smile crossed her lips.  "And if rumour doesn't lie, you'll be needing the nursery too."

Sirius muttered something under his breath.  "That's not decided yet," he pointed out irritably.

"Then make your mind up quickly, because Primrose Pettifer is an excellent choice.  It's only a shame that you can't marry her.  She's highly suitable; I like her."

"That odd creaking noise you can hear is my mother turning in her grave," he said, trying for humour instead of the irrational aggravation that tried to burst of his throat every time the subject came up. 

Andromeda wasn't amused.  "Because she's a half-blood?  Don't be a fool!  If there was one thing I agreed with Henry Potter and Petuarius Pettifer about, it was the idiocy of continual intermarriage among the first families.  The _last_ thing the Black line needs is more overbred sons and daughters!  But that's another matter entirely.  About the financial side of dealing with all these works – I think you need to talk to Gringotts, because despite Grandpapa's gambling I'm sure the estate was still in good shape when your father inherited, and he was hardly a spendthrift, was he?  And after such a long period without significant outgoings, the balance of the family vaults should be healthy.  Of course, by phasing the works you intend to do, you cushion the blow of the expense somewhat."

"I've been telling him that all along," Remus said, approaching unexpectedly.  He was covered in dust and green velvet fibres from the curtains.  "He doesn't listen, though."

"You asked for my opinion," Andromeda told Sirius sternly, "so I'll be annoyed if you ignore it!"

He raised his hands in surrender.  "I'm listening, I'm listening!  To _both_ of you."

"Good!" Remus said briskly.  "Now – Rosebud seems to be doing an excellent job with the mice, so let's see who has the best scouring charms.  I refuse to cordon this place off without attempting to clean it up a little first."

 

xXx

 

The narrow spiral stairs leading up to the first floor were clearly backstairs accesses intended for servants' use rather than the family.  The walls had been plastered and whitewashed and the stairs were waxed wood; it was cold and cobwebby when they opened the door, but the utilitarian nature of the staircase had protected it better than the more formal and high-maintenance parts of the house.  The steps were sound and the light brackets still had thick candle stubs in them that ignited when the door was opened.

"The doors onto the first floor open out into the passage in front of the drawing room on one side and the portrait gallery on the other," Sirius said, as they climbed the steps (Ron bringing up the rear, so that the webs would be removed before he had to deal with them).  "I don't know why the portrait gallery is called that, though – there are a few portraits there, but it's mostly ugly landscapes, seascapes and stylised mythology.  Most of the relatives' pictures are in the passage in front of the drawing room and the lesser gallery in front of the dining room."

"Remember, we're only assessing damage on this floor," Andromeda warned him.

"That, and looking for hidden rooms," Harry added.

She gave him an odd look.  "Why would you think there are hidden rooms on this floor?"

Harry looked quickly at Sirius.  "Because we found one."

Sirius shook his head quickly.  "I'll explain later," he told his cousin, "but yes, we need to be alert to the possibility of more hidden rooms, especially since my father's workroom must be around here somewhere and we need to – how shall I put it? – _neutralise_ the contents."

"I just want his books," Harry muttered.

Andromeda's brows were raised but she accepted Sirius's explanation.  "I shouldn't be surprised at the idea of hidden rooms, I suppose.  Bellatrix told me a tall story once about Grandpapa keeping a room full of erotic art, but I was never sure whether to believe her or not – "

"How would she know about something like that in the first place?" Remus asked, resolutely not looking at the others.

"Well, precisely."

They reached the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs and found themselves facing three doors.

"Drawing room," Sirius said, pointing to the one on his left, "and portrait gallery."

"And the third one?" Remus asked.

"The Music Room," Andromeda replied.

"But only because there's a piano in there," Sirius added.  "Want to start there?  We might as well."

The door stuck a little when he tried to open it; he had to put some weight against it and consequently fell into the room rather than entered it.  Dust rose in a thick cloud from the carpet beneath his feet and there was the tiny spectral ripping sound of a thick layer of cobwebs being pulled from across the entrance.  The room was dark, full of shadows pierced only by a thin band of light forcing its way through a damaged shutter on one of the windows.

 _"Lumos maxima!"_ Andromeda said coolly, holding her wand aloft.

It was like a cave in there.  Webs hung from the ceiling, strung from elaborate mouldings at the top of the walls to the candle-brackets placed at intervals and to the chandelier in the centre of the ceiling.  It was closed in and stuffy, dust lay thickly everywhere and there was a faint smell of mildew from the soft furnishings.

Remus reached above his head to touch one of the webs hanging across the doorway.  "The fumigation worked," he remarked.  "Lots of little corpses here …."

"Shall we open the shutters?" Andromeda suggested, and she and Sirius picked their way across the room, trying to stir up as little dust as possible from the carpet.  They had to struggle with the sashes of the windows and the others went to help with them, but in due course the windows were open and the shutters thrown back.  Light flooded into the room.

"Why does that piano have curtains around it?" Harry asked, staring at the baby grand in perplexity.  It did indeed have a dusty damask frill around its sides.

"That's another relic of our prudish ancestors," Remus explained with a smile.  "People used to have the odd notion that putting the legs of furniture on view was somehow indecent, so they covered them up."

"How can piano legs be indecent?" Ron wanted to know.  He sidled up to the piano and cautiously lifted the bottom edge of the frill with the tip of his wand.  The piano's legs were just piano legs, nothing remarkable.  "Oh.  I thought maybe they were carved to look like … legs.  But they're not."

"It would make more sense if they were," Sirius said.

"It was the association of ideas," Andromeda said.  "Remember, it's not so long ago that respectable witches always wore ankle-length skirts beneath their robes.  As the gentlemen never saw ladies' legs in a general way, I think it was felt that seeing _anything_ that could hint at the shape of ladies' legs would give rise to lecherous thoughts, so the legs of chairs, tables and other furniture were covered up."

Harry gave her an incredulous look.  "That would _never_ work," he said.

She looked amused.  "Why not?"

"I don't know about other blokes, but I have a better imagination than that," he said, and Sirius let out a barking laugh.

"You and me both, Harry!"

"I'll vouch for that," Remus murmured.  "Well, people, having confirmed that this really is a dusty old room with a piano in it, shall we move on?"

"Aren't you going to see if the piano still works?" Harry asked. 

Sirius looked at him.  "Why, do you have an urge to tinkle on the ivories in the evenings or something?"  Harry snorted.  "Then there isn't much point, is there?  I don't play, to the best of my knowledge Moony doesn't play, I don't remember Andromeda learning – "

"Cissy was the musician of the family," Andromeda replied.  "And Regulus, of course."

"Yes, and I could have gone all day without being reminded of what fantastic pianists the pair of them were," he said rather sourly.  "I don't think the condition of the piano is a serious issue at the moment, so let's move on."

 

xXx

 

What struck Harry most forcibly about Black Manor was the size of it and the amount of what seemed like sheer wasted space.  He supposed he wouldn't have noticed it so much if the house had been at all home-like and inviting – like The Rose House – but instead it gave him an impression of pointless and unwelcoming grandeur that was exacerbated by the dust, cobwebs and decay everywhere.

When Sirius had talked of the portrait gallery, what he'd mostly neglected to mention was that this long narrow feature of the house backed onto three other rooms.  The Music Room led into another smaller chamber known as the "American Saloon", a title that gave Harry visions of dingy bars and tumbleweed in the wild west, but proved instead to be a laughably naff affair full of ugly wickerwork furniture and woven jute mats on the wooden floorboards.  Huge terracotta pots containing long-dead grassy plants stood in the corners and there were even horizontal blinds at the windows. 

"My mother hated this room," Sirius remarked.  "One of my great-uncles designed it."

"For once she and I are on the same wavelength," Remus replied.  "This is _hideous_.  Good God, it looks like the waiting area of a cheap Muggle hairdresser's shop – there are even old magazines on that coffee table!"

"What's so American about it?" Ron wanted to know.

"I have no idea, and I wouldn't advise asking any Americans."

The next room was bigger, more elongated – an intimidating cavern of a room with several enormous mirrors down the longest wall that made it seem twice the size it really was.  When the shutters were opened it was seen to be sparsely but very elegantly furnished, with just two or three chairs in the very middle of the room, adding to the impression of a royal audience chamber which, it turned out, was not too far off the mark.

"Reception room," Sirius said briefly.  "If you were important enough to bypass the reception room downstairs, you were brought here.  The whole idea was to impress you with how much higher up the social scale we Blacks were compared to you.  See how few chairs there are?  Rumour has it that my parents saw Sylvester Bones in here when he was Minister and made him stand up the whole time."

There was an enormous tapestry on the wall at the far end of the room; Harry realised what it was almost at once, even though he'd never seen its twin in the house at Grimmauld Place.

"And _that's_ a monument to overweening pride and bigotry," Sirius said bitterly.

Seeing his face Harry decided that the time to examine it would be later, when his godfather was busy elsewhere.

The next room was the so-called "Tudor Room".  Apparently this was denoted by dark cherry-wood panelling, some very heavy-looking oak chairs, and a preponderance of pseudo-mediaeval tapestries on the walls depicting witches and unicorns.

"Very red, isn't it?" Remus remarked.  "Doesn't quite match the colour scheme of the rest of the house."

"I always found this room more inviting than some of the others," Andromeda commented.

"It's certainly warmer in its feel."

The doorway into the next tower from this room had been solidly bricked up. 

"That used to lead into the Ladies' Sun Room, most of which is now Harry's bathroom," Sirius said.  "Come on, let's take a look at the portrait gallery."

The portrait gallery ran along the inside of the wing, with windows all along one side overlooking the central courtyard.  These windows weren't shuttered which initially perplexed Harry; then, when he thought about what Sirius had said about the hidden rooms probably being located somewhere in that space, it made more sense.  They were filthy but enough light still filtered through the glass to make it quite easy to see the state of the gallery area.  Once again the primary problems seemed to be the accumulated dust and depredations of creatures such as spiders and mice.  Unnervingly, there were also tracks through the thick dust – paw prints and more snake-like slither marks.

"No mouse or rat made those," Andromeda commented, sounded admirably composed.

"No," Sirius agreed dryly.  "Let's stick to the edges of the carpet and see if we can track them.  Ron, where's that kneazle of yours?  I should think this is right up her street."

"Rosebud?" Ron said to the general air, and she startled him very much by appearing inside his t-shirt and climbing out of the neck with a struggle.  "What do you reckon to these, girl?" he asked her, crouching down and indicating the tracks.

She opted to sniff at them from the safety of his shoulder, showing no inclination to get any closer.

"I think that answers that," Remus said, amused.  "Sirius?"

"Fine, fine, I'll do all the work as usual …."  Sirius heaved a long-suffering sigh and changed shape.

"I can't get used to seeing him do that," Andromeda remarked.

"It's cool," Harry said.  "Dead useful.  It's just a pity you can't pick your Animagus shape, since you could end up as anything really, and I don't see much point in being a – a stick insect."  Padfoot barked at him, and sneezed at the dust he raised.  Harry rolled his eyes and looked at Remus.  "He's going on about the giraffe again, I'll bet you anything."

"I don't think I want to ask," Remus said, amused.  "Giraffe?"

"Only a pillock like my brother Percy would turn into a giraffe," Ron said scornfully.  "Can't you just see it?"

"We're trying not to," Remus assured him, lips quivering.  "Moving swiftly on – are you picking anything up, Padfoot?"

Padfoot began to snuffle along the edges of the carpet, frequently pausing to sneeze, and the others followed him as he made his way slowly along the gallery.  Harry happened to glance out of the long windows at one point; he saw that they were level with the statue of Mercury atop the courtyard fountain.  Close up it was even more unpleasant to look at, the hunted features encrusted with verdigris and bird droppings.

"I hope we can take that down," he commented.

Andromeda followed his gaze.  "It's strange," she said.  "When I was a girl I must have seen that fountain scores of times, but I never gave any real thought to it until just before I left the family.  It's an ugly, frightening sculpture."

She turned away to look at the many picture frames hanging on the wall opposite.  The majority were landscapes, as Sirius had said, and Harry noted this with interest for until now he had assumed that wizards didn't have much interest in pictures that didn't have people or at least animals in them; Hogwarts boasted mainly portraits and very occasional still-lifes.  Mostly the Black collection contained watery paintings of violent, stormy seas, hurricane-lashed tropical beaches where the palm trees were bent almost flat, and bleak-looking moors featuring rocky outcroppings against a backdrop of dark, cloudy skies.  Ruined buildings were a popular addition to the land-locked pictures, while the occasional storm-tossed ship emphasised the point of the nautical ones.

Amid all these depressing examples of magical art, however, were two frames, one floor length and the other large and square, both draped in heavy green velvet curtains.  Harry saw Andromeda's mouth tighten when she looked at them and before anyone realised what she was planning, she raised her wand and pointed it.

 _"Stupefy!  Stupefy!"_

The curtains quivered and were still.

Everyone looked at her, Harry with curiosity, Remus with raised brows and Ron bemused.  Padfoot simply wagged his tail as Andromeda shrugged and said, "I didn't like the idea of us being watched while we were doing this."

Remus glanced at the two frames and nodded.  "Fair enough.  Shall we get a move on then?"

Padfoot went back to sniffing his way down the carpet along the line of the tracks.  Harry noted, with a combination of curiosity and unease, that there were significantly more snake marks than paw prints in the dust.  He wondered if Gaius Black had particularly liked serpents

"Dunno what it is," Ron remarked quietly, "but Rosebud's not happy about it."

The others glanced at him, surprised, but his meaning was evident; the kneazle was still perched on his shoulders, but her ears were quivering and her fur raised.  The tassel on the tip of her tail was sticking out like a bottlebrush and flicking nervously.

"Perhaps she doesn't like Sirius's current form," Andromeda suggested.

"She hasn't had a problem with it before."

About halfway along the gallery the paw prints seemed to just stop.  The snake marks, by contrast, drifted off the carpet a few feet more and through the dust towards the windows, eventually petering out right up against the wall below.

Padfoot made a disgusted snorting sound and suddenly he was Sirius again, sniffling and pressing his knuckles against his nose.  "Damn dust," he said indistinctly.

"Why don't those paw prints go any further?" Ron asked warily.

Even Andromeda was starting to look disturbed.  "I hope that doesn't mean what I think it means," she said.

"Depending on how much _impetus_ the construct is given, it can sometimes simulate Apparition," Harry said.

"How much what?" Ron said, looking blank.

"Impetus," Harry repeated, and he shrugged.  "It's in one of those books I was reading this morning – about the golems, remember?  Impetus is a bit like momentum or – or the will to move.  It's the word the witch who wrote the book gave to the type of spell used to make a construct move.  Pure Animation is a kind of impetus, but an Animator just channels their own magic into the construct.  If you're animating by using charms, the impetus is different.  Pure Animation can't make a construct Apparate – because Apparition involves consciousness, which a construct doesn't have - but you can use a spell to do it, although I get the impression that it's more of a portkey-type effect."

"My understanding of that, which is admittedly limited, is that the two forms of animation don't work well together," Sirius said.

"That's what I thought," Harry said, shrugging.  "The book makes a big point of that, and in the introduction the author seems to think that charm-based animation is better because it doesn't rely on an extension of the Animator's will."

"Which makes sense, because pure Animation relies very much on the skill and power of the individual wizard."  Sirius shook his head.  "My father was an experimenter.  If it was at all possible to make the two forms of Animation work in concert, then he would have done it, especially for fringe benefits like making a creature Apparate itself."

"It wouldn't be able to go just anywhere," Harry said.  "The uses are a bit limited – I read that part in particular because it seemed like the most useful bit in the book.  That's why I think it's more like a portkey effect, because the Animator would have to pre-set the charm to certain locations.  You could make it so that the construct would take itself back to a particular room in the house at a particular time.  Simple stuff."

"I would take issue with one point," Remus said, pinching the bridge of his nose.  "You say Animation doesn't give consciousness, but when you think of the apparent free will of things like the suits of armour at Hogwarts, that argument becomes a little rocky."

"It's still only a separated strand of the Animator's own will," Sirius replied.  "If the suits of armour seem incredibly clever, it's because the wizard who Animated them put a hell of a lot of work into the process.  They're still only operating on a series of pre-determined imperatives and they're fairly ineffectual – if the castle was attacked, for example, they wouldn't fight.  Or they might simulate fighting but not in a meaningful way."

"Also, the bigger and heavier the object, the harder it is to Animate effectively," Harry added.  "That seems to be true of both sorts of animation.  The handles on some of the doors here are really effective because they're small and made of something that can become fluid very quickly.  Two pieces of metal welded together are less effective than a single, moulded piece of metal.  But a moulded piece of metal takes more magical energy to Animate than two bits of metal with a hinge performing a single task.  Does that make sense?"

"Not to me," Andromeda said dryly, "but I don't pretend to know anything about the subject.  What I _do_ know is that I don't like the idea of these things being able to Apparate or portkey themselves, or whatever you choose to call it."

"You know, I don't get why they're running loose around the building anyway," Ron said.  "If they can't think or whatever, what's the point?"

"There were always things lurking around the corners in this house," Andromeda said dismissively.  "It was something we all accepted, growing up here."

"But to do what?" he asked, puzzled.

"They were spies to keep a watch on the family," Sirius replied mildly. 

"How?  Being a spy suggests they can think."  Ron looked at them uncertainly.  "Doesn't it?"

"Nah, it doesn't," Harry said.  "Not if it's just recording stuff and someone looks at the recording later.  It'd be like a surveillance camera."

Ron looked interested.  "That's a Muggle thing, right?  Dad was going on about Muggles having cameras that made moving pictures – not like _our_ pictures, but on a tape of some kind.  I didn't really get how that worked though."

"That's the sort of thing," Harry agreed.  "They put them on buildings sometimes, so that if the place gets burgled or something, the police can look at the film and see a picture of who did it."

"We don't have that kind of camera, Harry," Remus said.  "I don't think it would work like that."

"Some types of crystal can be charmed to record images," Andromeda said.  "I suppose it's a little like a pensieve, although I have no idea how one creates something that can contain thoughts rather than straightforward images, or even how one would retrieve images from a crystal."

Harry's interest was definitely piqued.  "Professor Flitwick told me that if you want to Animate something to move properly – not just simple movements in one place – you have to give it eyes, and the more you want it to move, the more complicated the eyes have to be.  Like – my cardboard puppets are okay with eyes drawn in ink, but my dragon has a couple of glass beads for eyes so that it can fly.  He has a model of a bird in his office made of pieces of ivory and flakes of shell and it has eyes made out of polished crystals.  He can make it fly and do all sorts of things."

"I think we definitely need to find your father's workshop," Remus told Sirius.  "The more I hear about the capabilities of his creations, the less I like the idea of them having full access to the house."

"Well, we're doing our best," Sirius said.  "We have a creature that can potentially Apparate itself to pre-set places in the house.  Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that at least one of its preset locations is the workroom, which we still have to find.  The other thing is snaky and its tracks disappeared into the wall here.  That makes sense inasmuch as I've said all along that the hidden rooms must be in the space above the courtyard, and previous evidence – " he raised a meaningful brow at his partner, "bears that theory out so far.  I don't feel or smell any illusions here though.  Harry?"

As he moved forward to run his hands over the wall and window frame, Harry wondered if this ability of his to sense illusions really _would_ help him towards a career in curse-breaking.  If he still wanted to do that when he left school, of course.  There had to be a lot more to it than fondling things to see if they tingled.

"Does being a dog make any difference to your abilities?" Andromeda was asking Sirius.

"It makes it a little difficult to hold a wand," Sirius replied gravely.

Harry hid a grin.  He ran his hands over the wall then moved up to the window cill.  Ron wandered over to join him.

"Do you reckon there's another door here?" he asked Harry.

"No idea.  I can't feel anything.  Here – give me a hand with the sash, will you?"

They fought with the window catches and got the sash undone.  Harry threw the window open as wide as he could and leaned out.  Fresh air rushed in around him and he had time to register a peculiar magical 'smell' before the floor beneath his feet suddenly seemed to slide sideways.

"Whoa, mate!"  Ron caught him as he fell backwards and held him tightly until he regained his balance.

"Sorry," Harry told him, at once feeling foolish.

"What was that?" Remus demanded, hastily coming to run his wand over the window.  "I can't see anything – Sirius?"

"No – it's okay," Harry said quickly.  "It's not a curse or anything – there's something out there, something using buckets of power.  It's like suddenly being surrounded by static."

"Something like a hidden room?" Sirius suggested, also running his wand over the window.

"Whatever it is, it's huge so yeah, probably.  Smells like Aunt Petunia's vacuum cleaner after it sucked up Dudley's rubber band ball."

"Like _what?_ " Ron said, astonished.

"A vacuum cleaner," Harry repeated and when Ron continued to look blank, he sighed.  "Look, it's an electrical device, okay?  Doesn't matter what it does.  It just burned out one day and when electrical stuff burns out, it gets this funny smell – kind of metallic and singed plastic."

"I can't smell anything," Sirius pointed out.

"It's not a _smell_ smell," Harry said irritably.  "It's _like_ a smell, okay?  And it's staticky out there."

"I'll go along with that."  Sirius waved his hand around outside the window and when he drew it back, he showed them all.  The hair was standing up on his arm.

"Interesting," Andromeda said.  She gave Harry a thoughtful look.  "You have a very strong feel for ambient magic, don't you?"

"Do I?" he muttered, and she looked amused.  "I can't tell if there's a door there at all," he confessed to Sirius.  "The static's too strong.  I could try climbing out – "

 _"No!"_ they all said at once, and Ron gave his shoulder a shake.

"What if it makes you dizzy again?" the redhead demanded.  "You'll end up in the courtyard with a broken neck or something!"

"It's not high enough for me to break my neck," Harry pointed out reasonably.

"You're not breaking a leg or even an ankle this close to going back to school," Remus warned.  "Besides, feeling dizzyis the very least of it!  Jumping into the middle of a powerful charm lattice is so idiotic that I don't even know where to start."

"You _can_ fly out of the courtyard on a broom," Sirius pointed out fairly.  "Regulus and I did it several times when we were kids."

"Flying up from ground level is an entirely different proposition to jumping out of a first floor window," Remus retorted.  "He could end up caught between the charms holding the rooms in place and the open air – if he's really lucky, he could get stuck halfway through a hidden wall or something!"

"I agree," Andromeda said firmly.  "If there's a door here, it's too bad – people's safety is more important than trying to locate a hidden room.  Besides, there may be other entrances."

"I'll get Bill to come and take a look at this place," Ron offered, and Remus nodded gratefully.

"Good idea.  Now let's move on – the day isn't getting any longer."

"What will you do about these pictures?" Andromeda asked Sirius as they closed the window again and made for the other end of the gallery.  "I saw that you took all the portraits out of the ballroom."

"Those are in storage," he replied.  He saw her expression.  "Remus's doing, not mine!"

"I don't think he should simply destroy his family's history, no matter how little he might like it," Remus said.

"Hm," she said noncommittally.

"If possible, I want to take down all the portraits for now," Sirius continued.  "Aside from the fact that we don't know how many of them have pictures in other houses that they can visit, there's no point in leaving them in place to make a nuisance of themselves."

"Have you managed to remove your mother from Grimmauld Place yet?" she asked with a dry note in her voice.

"Unfortunately, no!"

"I thought not.  I've been talking to Ted and we were wondering if something a little more – _brutal_ – might at least solve the problem of her being there and screaming all the time.  Had you considered paint-stripper?"

Sirius stopped dead and gave her an admiring look.  "Now why didn't we think of that?"

 

xXx

 

On the other side of the Music Room was a 'Chinese Saloon' – more red decorations, including a lot of dragon and firebird motifs, solid lacquered chairs and heavily fringed lampshades, all of which Andromeda denounced as tasteless and Harry compared unfavourably to the décor of a Muggle Chinese restaurant.  Apparently the great-uncle who had been responsible for the 'American Saloon' was also the author of this disaster.

Beyond this was a long drawing room with a thick green carpet on the floor, green velvet curtains at the windows, more olive green wallpaper, and little clusters of over-stuffed sofas and chairs around low tables.  There were a couple of glass-fronted cabinets full of knickknacks and tiny tables against the walls bearing vases and ornaments; Ron remarked on how much it looked like the drawing room at Grimmauld Place before they'd cleaned it out.  Harry noted several china shepherdess-type ornaments that reminded him unpleasantly of his Aunt Petunia's prized china collection.  At least his aunt's ornaments had never turned to look at him and scowl as he walked past them, although he thought that was probably only because she hadn't possessed the magic to make them do it.




From the look of things, this room still had a few preservation charms intact; it was possible to tell where the others had collapsed from the broad dusty stripes at one end of the room, which made a weird counterpoint to the trapped-in-amber cleanliness of the rest of the room.

They didn't linger, but moved on to the next room which continued the international theme by being called the 'Italian Saloon'.  Harry couldn't see what, exactly, was supposed to be so Italian about it unless it was the cherubs on the wallpaper and carved into the arms of the chairs.  It was wildly over-decorated and, once again, rather tacky.  As with much of the house, it also suffered badly from such prolonged neglect and there was dust, cobwebs and mildew everywhere. 

Beyond that was the upper level of the library.  A small passage ran behind this allowing access to the final wing containing the dining room and 'lesser' gallery.  Harry noted that this passage led out to the head of the stairs where he and Ron had discovered the doorway into Mercurius Black's 'secret museum'.  The door to the secret room had temporarily been closed, for which he was grateful, and Sirius led them all past it just as though it was the blank wall with a small table against it that it was masquerading as.

"Shall we avoid the gallery for now?" Andromeda suggested.

"Willingly," Sirius replied, with a wry twist to his mouth.

Ron tugged on Harry's sleeve, holding him back as the others moved towards the dining room doors.  "Is it me, or is there a real lack of curses around here?" he said.  "I was expecting a bit more excitement!"

"Well, it's not like we really touched or moved anything," Harry admitted, "but yeah, I was wondering why we hadn't seen more, I don't know, scabies curses or something."

"The day is still young," Remus told them, amused, as he walked past them.

"Moony!" Sirius said from the doorway.  "Remember you wondered where all the china and crystal was when we moved in here?"

"I remember buying a complete dinner service from the nearest branch of Ikea, and having to spout my grandmother's teapot to cover it because you didn't bother to get any Galleons converted," Remus replied mildly.  "Funny how these things come back to one."

"It was you who insisted on going to that place," Sirius retorted.  "Why you couldn't go to a wizard shop …."

"I would have if you'd been prepared to let me out of your sight for more than five minutes, but you wouldn't and since the general wizard populace was still spooking at the sight of you, it was easier to go to a Muggle store.  Besides, I thought you liked Swedish meatballs?"

"They judge the size of the portion they give you by the number of meatballs in it," Sirius told Andromeda in an outraged tone.  "They _count_ the number of meatballs they give you!  And the coffee is free but you have to pay for the cup to pour it into.  But they don't let you take the cup you've _bought_ away with you when you've finished!"

"The whole experience would have been so much easier if he'd just had the fish and chips," Remus noted.  He craned his neck to peer over Andromeda's shoulder into the dining room.  "I take it the china and crystal is in here?  Oh lord, look at that.  All it's lacking is Miss Haversham in her wedding dress."

The dining room was eerily gothic in its splendid dinner party layout.  The table was extended to its full length, the _paterfamilias_ 's chair at the head in all its grandly carved oaken glory and a lesser but still throne-like counterpart for the lady of the family at the foot.  The dining room could seat sixteen couples at full stretch and still give them all plenty of elbow room.  The tableware was starkly magnificent, the layered cloths and napkins of the finest linen, the silver-wear all highest quality goblin-work, the china and crystal imported from Italy.  Looking at it anyone could be forgiven for thinking that old Mrs. Black had been anticipating an array of pureblood guests in advance of a high society ball on the day that the house had been closed up.  God only knew what had been in her mind when she ordered the last of the family elves to dress the table, but dressed it was and still awaiting both dinner guests and dinner, despite being inches deep in dust and festooned in cobwebs.  Remus was not far off in his assessment of the situation.

Ron gave Harry an eye-boggling look.  _Miss Haversham?_ he mouthed.

"It's from Dickens," Harry explained.  " _Great Expectations._ "

"What's a nice lad like you doing reading Dickens?" Andromeda demanded, amused.

"Didn't read it," Harry said.  "It was on TV once when I was doing the ironing.  I _nearly_ read it when I got bored, because some idiot gave my cousin Dudley a complete set of Dickens for his birthday.  I couldn't sneak it out of the spare room though.  Too big."

It was hard to tell what Andromeda made of this, and Remus clearly didn't want to find out for he hastily said, "Probably just as well.  I can't imagine what you would have thought of it, with your upbringing.  So … does anyone want to risk moving the silver-wear and dropping a curse on us that'll reduce the house to bare foundations, or shall we leave this one for Kingsley and Nymphadora and proceed onwards to the laundry cupboards of the second floor?"

Harry grinned at him.  "You were listening to Madam Bellecoeur at my birthday party, weren't you?"

"In a house this size, Harry, the contents of the pantry and laundry cupboards are always going to be the primary concerns," he replied gravely.

"I'm not in any hurry to wake the family in the gallery," Sirius said.  "Let's take a shifty upstairs before we stop for lunch."

 

xXx

 

The family's quarters were directly above the dining room and lesser gallery, with the master bedroom in the tower room above the library.  The five of them climbed the stairs by the lesser gallery and emerged onto the next landing to be confronted by strings of glowing tape reaching from door to door halfway down the passage.  There was a notice slapped haphazardly onto the door directly opposite the stairs.

 _SEALED BY ORDER OF_

 _THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC_

 _(AURORS' DIVISION)_

 _TRESPASSERS WILL BE TRANSFIGURED_

 

There was more, but Sirius stopped Harry before he could get close enough to read it.  "Be careful not to cross the tape!" he warned.  "The rooms have been warded."  He glanced at Remus and gave him an odd little grin.  "You have to admire Moody's balls," he remarked.  "There aren't many Aurors who would have dared to search this place, even with a warrant from Barty Crouch or the Minister."

"Is that your room or Regulus's?" Remus asked warily.

"Regulus's.  Or it was, until I left.  The heir's suite is next to my father's.  Look, the moment I handed in my resignation I lost security clearance, so I don't want to attempt touching any of this until Tonks or Kingsley have taken the wards down.  Let's move on."

Harry got the impression that Sirius was quite happy with an excuse not to broach his brother's room anyway.  This idea was reinforced when they discovered Sirius's old room was also taped off and warded.  He led them away rather quickly and instead they braced themselves to view Mr. and Mrs. Black's rooms.

"Why did they have separate bedrooms?" Ron asked, bemused, as Sirius and Remus checked the first door with paranoid wariness.

"You've met my mother's portrait," Sirius said distractedly.  "Would you want to share a bed with that?"

Harry grinned, but Andromeda grimaced at her cousin's back. 

"It's the accepted custom among a lot of older couples," she told Ron.  "Especially among the pureblood families.  Many marriages were arranged – they still are in some cases – and under those circumstances the husband would keep his own suite of rooms."

Ron looked across at Harry, perplexed, and Harry shrugged.  He didn't entirely understand it either, although he could see the benefits attached to the arrangement if you weren't especially fond of your partner.  It was certainly convenient.

"Did your dad have a bit on the side?" he asked Sirius.

"Certainly – more than one."  Sirius's tone was very dry.  "At least one of them received a handsome pay off when he died, according to my solicitors."

Remus gave him a startled look.  "When did you hear about that?"

"A couple of weeks ago.  I thought I showed you the letter – she heard about me being reinstated and decided to try her luck.  Did I really not tell you?"

"No, you didn't."  Remus pursed his lips.  "What did she want?"

"Money, of course."  Sirius's tone was now very offhand.  "She told them she knew all my old man's secrets and wanted to be paid to keep her mouth shut."

Andromeda made a disgusted sound in her throat.  "I hope they showed her the door!"

"I told them I didn't think there was much she could say that would surprise me, but she was welcome to try and publish it as I can always use a laugh.  Judging by the way old Hubbard danced around the subject, I think she was talking about furry handcuffs and riding crops.  Tame, really, but he's easily shocked."

Harry frowned.  For some reason he found it difficult to find this amusing.  Discovering Mercurius Black's pornography collection had been one thing; men liked porn, after all, and while it was an extraordinary example of the habit, Harry could get his mind around that.  The idea that Sirius's father had casually entertained more than one mistress – and that Sirius knew about it and was apparently undisturbed by the idea – was an entirely different matter.  He didn't like it; something about the apparently open nature of this 'secret' brought home the sheer dysfunctionality of the Black family and made Harry feel acutely uncomfortable.  He couldn't imagine what the atmosphere must have been like in a household where the master casually kept a mistress under his wife's nose and his sons knew about it.

"Not shocked, are you?" Remus asked, watching his face.  "After what you've seen so far, a mistress or two is really small potatoes, don't you think?"

"No," Harry muttered, looking away.

Sirius caught Remus's eye and gave him a tiny headshake to warn him off the subject.  "Well, I can't find anything on the door so let's open it …."

He pointed his wand at the door and the handle turned with a click, allowing the it to swing open inwardly. 

Nothing happened.

A little like Ron and Harry when they'd first opened the door to Gaius Black's study, he and Remus tried to look inside without actually touching anything or crossing the threshold.

"Of course!" Sirius said after a moment, and he stepped inside.  Still nothing happened and he turned to face the others.  "This is my mother's room.  She moved to Grimmauld Place permanently after my father died and Regulus was arrested, so there's nothing of hers left in here."

They all followed him inside and found that while the furnishings were still there – and reasonably well-preserved, despite the dust – it was bare of anything that would have indicated a person living there.

"She owned Grimmauld Place, according to my mother," Andromeda remarked.  "She was a Black, but from another branch of the family.  The town house was part of her dowry."

"So that's why her portrait always shrieks about it being 'the house of her forefathers'!" Remus said.

"It explains a lot," Sirius said cryptically.  "I doubt there's anything in here worth looking at now."  He wandered over to a door at the other end of the room and opened it.  "Dressing room," he said after a moment, and closed it again.  "Nothing in there."  He paused by a small bedside table, opened the top drawer and shut it again.  "Empty.  We might as well move on and see what's left in my father's room.  There was stacks of his stuff at Grimmauld Place, I don't know why."

"He died there," Andromeda told him, and his brows went up.  "Didn't you know?  He wasn't in good health for a while and I think they stayed in town that year so that he was closer to St. Mungo's.  Or so I was told; I don't know the details, of course."

"Something to do with his stomach, probably," Sirius replied shortly, as they all left the room again.  "He had trouble with it for years, long before I left home, and he liked to drink."

The master bedroom, while still dominated by an impressive king-sized four poster bed and other heavy, ornate furniture, was also relatively bare of personal belongings.  It too was dusty and for the first time on the second floor they discovered more prints and other marks in the dust from unspecified 'creatures'.  One set disappeared into an empty wardrobe (which Harry insisted on climbing inside to investigate, in case it was like his grandfather's cupboard in the study at the Rose House – but it wasn't) and the others all stopped dead like the ones in the gallery on the first floor.

"Damn things are set on winding us up, if you ask me," Remus said sourly.  "Look, the time's running on – let's do a very quick recce of this floor, see what sort of rooms we're dealing with, then we can Floo-call a few people and have them round to make plans this evening."

Which was what they did, and Harry and Ron quickly grew very bored.  Of all the house, this was the one floor where some effort had been expended to close things up in an orderly manner.  The family wing that they started off in was in the most disorder, probably because it had been the most recently used, but even there many of the rooms were under covers, including the nursery which was the furthest room from Mr. and Mrs. Black's rooms.

"It'll need redecorating," Remus remarked carefully, looking around him, "if you decide to use this room at all, which you don't have to, of course."

Harry peered into the large heirloom cradle (it was heavily carved and darkened with age), thinking that he wouldn't have liked to sleep in it, then gave a truly terrifying, wild-eyed rocking-horse a push.  It squealed on its rockers.

"Don't like this much," Ron said, hunching his shoulders, and Andromeda agreed, shuddering delicately.

"I don't have good memories of it," Sirius said.  "It'll have to be stripped down to the bare boards before I'll even consider using it.  But it's not very convenient and I don't see why kids should be banished to the top of the house anyway."

They moved on, cataloguing more spare rooms in the tower, the guest suites in the next wing, another tower suite, and finally the narrower front wing known as the 'relatives' wing and generally reserved for more distant family members when they visited.  The latter was in pretty good shape thanks to it rarely having been used and therefore placed under more permanent preservation charms.  Sirius, Remus and Andromeda paused finally to discuss the possibilities of starting with this wing first and Harry, who had long since lost interest, grabbed Ron's arm and took him off for a private exploration that was less about redecoration and more about the latest Quidditch scores.

"Are you ready to go back to school?" he asked eventually, after they'd thoroughly thrashed out the closing moves of the Bats-v-Kestrels game held the previous day and assessed one of the Beaters' chances of making it onto the Irish national team.

"Mostly," Ron said, unconcerned.  "I did some of my essays in Egypt, but I've still got the Transfiguration one to finish and I s'pose my Potions one could do with re-writing.  You?"

"Did 'em all while I was up at Hogwarts," Harry said.

"You _are_ going back to school, aren't you?" Ron asked him after a moment.

Harry gave him a sidelong glance and the corner of his mouth twitched.  "Probably.  I mean, I _could_ stay here and help Sirius clean the house out, but it sort of palls after a while - know what I mean?"

Ron grinned.  "Only one more year now," he said in a speculative tone.  "Crikey – we'll have to start applying for jobs and everything next."

"Yeah," Harry said a little hollowly.  The prospect of applying for jobs was less appealing to him, as he felt reasonably sure that the places he would prefer to work in wouldn't be terribly keen to hire him.  Especially after the disaster at Easter when Flourish and Blotts had been blown up.  And he still had Voldemort breathing down his neck ….

"Wonder what's in here?" Ron said, breaking in on this depressing chain of thoughts.

Harry looked up and saw that his friend was gesturing towards a narrow wooden door painted a dark brown to match the rest of the paintwork and with a small brass handle on one side.  It was placed almost exactly in the middle between the doors to two different suites.

"Dunno – storage cupboard?"  Harry ran a hand and then his wand over it cautiously but couldn't feel any of the telltale tingle of magic about it.  "Let's see …."   It was pretty dark inside when he opened it, so he lit his wand.  And laughed. "Better tell Remus we've found his laundry cupboard!" he said.




"A _walk-in_ laundry cupboard," Ron said, following his friend inside and staring around at the shelves crammed with folded blankets, sheets and pillowslips.  He grinned.  "Look at this lot!  My mum'd be in hog-heaven with one of these!"

"It's all in pretty good nick too," Harry observed, patting some of the sheets.  "Decent preservation charms ….  They probably just need a wash.  Well, that's something, not having to buy stacks of sheets."

"Might not even need a wash," Ron said.  He pulled a pillowslip off one pile and shook it out, then held it up to his face.  "Smells quite fresh to me.  Oh, look – the family crest's on it as well."

"Nice," Harry said dryly.  He pushed through the narrow walkway, holding his wand up to examine the shelves.  "Quilts and bedspreads – weird, my Aunt Petunia had blankets with a pattern like that – bath-towels – lots of bath-towels – "

He was abruptly silenced by Ron's arms sliding around his middle from behind. 

"You're a bit of a housemaid on the quiet, aren't you?" the redhead said in his right ear.

"Aunt Petunia thought that was my proper place in life."

"Sod your Aunt Petunia, the miserable cow."  Ron turned Harry around and pushed him back against a shelf piled high with soft, fluffy towels in a variety of colours.  A faint aroma of lavender drifted up around them.  "I reckon there are better things we could be doing than counting beds and wondering how much wallpaper we're going to have to replace."

Harry suppressed a grin.  "Such as?"

"I reckon we could start with snogging and take it from there, yeah?" Ron suggested conversationally.

 

xXx

 

"The only downside I can see with using these rooms is that the easiest access would be via the front entrance, and obviously that's out of the question at the moment," Andromeda said.  "I suppose the stairs in the tower that's in use couldn't be restored?"

"That'd be a bit problematical with the way we have things set up at the moment," Sirius replied.  "That said – Moony, isn't there an external access in the tower on the other side of the main entrance?"

"Yes, there is," Remus said, mildly surprised.  "I forgot about that.  It's well blocked off though – you warded it yourself when we decided to make use of the tower basement."

"What's blocked can be unblocked.  We'll take a look at it later.  Could be handy to have a separate entrance at that."  Sirius paused and looked around.  "Shall we call it a day here and get some lunch?  Pettifer will be here sometime this afternoon to give Harry another lesson."

"Where _is_ Harry?" Andromeda asked.  "And young Ron?  They slipped off very quietly."

Remus suppressed a smile.  "Exploring on their own perhaps?"

She gave him an old-fashioned look.  "I'm not blind, Remus!  If they're exploring anything, I imagine it's each other – "

 _"SIRIUS!"_

The distant shout was muffled but perfectly audible and very, very frantic.

 _"HELP!"_

"That's Harry," Sirius said, his smile vanishing, and he took off with the other two at his heels.  "Harry!  Harry, dammit, where are you?"

 _"Here – quick!"_

There was a door open halfway down the passage, one that they'd noted in passing but not bothered to try because it was clearly not a door into a room.  Sirius burst through it, noting only peripherally that it was a laundry closet, and found his godson dishevelled and absolutely frantic.  There was no sign of Ron.

"Harry, what the hell – "

"He's gone!" Harry said, his voice high pitched with fright.  "We were – we were – never mind – and he leaned against that shelf and disappeared!  I can hear him groaning and there's a hole in the floor or something, but I can't see – "

"Come out of there and let me look."  Sirius pulled the teenager aside and squeezed past him, treading warily and holding his wand aloft.

"Oh bloody hell, it's not a laundry chute, is it?" Remus demanded from the doorway. 

Sirius stooped over the spot where Harry had indicated the 'hole in the floor'.  "Ron?" he called.  A muffled groan answered him.  "Why the hell is it so dark in this corner?  _Lumos maxima!_ "  His wand-light brightened but not enough.  "Christ!  Someone get a lamp – transfigure something if you have to!"

In the meantime he knelt down and began to feel his way cautiously around the opening that Ron had fallen into.  "Whatever it is, it's a regular shape and more than big enough for a person," he reported over his shoulder.  "Harry, did you hear anything move before Ron fell?"

"The whole shelf moved!  It was across the back wall, but now it's underneath the shelf on the left side.  Can't you see all the towels and stuff bunched up there?"

"Then it was hidden?"  Sirius looked up at the shelves and saw what Harry meant.  The piles of linen were crammed together and the shelf beneath them was a double thickness compared to the one next to it.  "This definitely isn't a laundry chute."

"Then what is it?" Harry demanded anxiously.

"Harry, I don't know!  Be patient, will you?  It won't do anyone any good if I end up at the bottom of this thing on top of Ron."

Remus appeared, reaching around Harry.  "Lamp," he said, handing over a thing that looked like a cross between a china soup tureen and a hurricane lamp.  "Sorry it's a bit sketchy.  I hurried."

"It's alight, that's all that matters," Sirius said.  _"Wingardium leviosa!"_   He carefully lowered the hovering lamp into the hole.  "Bloody hell!"

"What is it?" three voices demanded.

Sirius turned to look at them.  "It's a staircase."

xXx

 

"That really hurt," Ron said.  He was very pale and sickly-looking under his freckles.

"I expect it did," Andromeda replied.  She was carefully examining his head.  "Now hold still for a moment.  Did you say he had a skull fracture earlier in the year?"  This was directed at Remus.

"Yes - a nasty one.  Another fall down a set of stairs."

"Stay away from staircases in future," she advised Ron.  "Well, I can't feel any splits, but I've only had the most basic emergency mediwitch training.  I really think you should get a healer to take a look at him.  He's going to be covered in bruises as it is and his left shoulder is already purple."

"Shall I go and Floo-call Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asked.  He was torn between staying at Ron's side and exploring the room his friend had inadvertently discovered.

"No, I'd better do it," Remus replied.  "Sirius, can you manage here?  I don't want to come back and find you all poisoned or in a trap or something."

"No worries," Sirius replied.  He was standing over a large, slightly tilted table, examining some documents that were spread across it.  "We're going no further than this room until I know exactly what's in here and what we're dealing with.  You might drop a word to Dumbledore as well, though.  I should think he or Flitwick would like a look at this."

"I'll do that."  Remus paused beside Ron before he climbed the concealed staircase.  "Stay on that couch," he warned the teenager.

Ron gave him a rueful look that was rendered even more pathetic by the sizeable bruise under his right eye.  "No fear!"

Harry hovered when Remus was gone.  "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I reckon."  Ron let himself sag back into the deep and very comfortable brown leather couch positioned to one side of the staircase.  "I can see all I want to see of this place from here, though!"

What he had 'found' was a room roughly the size and shape of the study on the ground floor.  There were comfortable leather chairs and couches like the one Ron was sitting on, a thick and luxurious carpet on the floor, bookcases against the walls, an enormous chest with many wide shallow drawers, and an odd table in the middle of the room, broad and tilted and coated in a fine rubbery surface to prevent things slipping.  The table had a small cabinet next to it with more shallow drawers and a tray on top holding several inkwells and a selection of quills, dipping pens, pencils and charcoal.  There was also an odd lighting arrangement above the table that, when Sirius cast a _lumos_ charm on it, cycled slowly through a wide spectrum of light.

Sirius gave Ron a sideways grin from where he was standing at the table.  "No one can say you don't use your head to find things!" he joked.

"Ha ha!  Talk about _snoggus interruptus_."

"My old man's twisted sense of morality in action.  It's incredible that he put an entrance to this place in a laundry closet on the second floor - it's not very convenient."

"Perhaps it's not an entrance," Harry said absently.  He was studying the books on the shelves behind Ron's couch.  "Maybe it's an exit."

"That's an idea," Andromeda remarked.  "If there's an alternative entrance elsewhere, of course.  But it would certainly be useful to have an exit close to one's bedchamber if one used this room late into the night."

"Nothing to say it was my old man who did it, of course," Sirius said.  "Harry, take a look at this, will you?"

Harry tore himself away from the books and went to look at the documents spread across the table.

"What do you make of these?" Sirius asked him.

"They're plans for an automaton," Harry said at once, studying them.  "It's not something based on an animal though - it's more like a spider, but with only six legs.  Look at the feet."

"I'm looking more at the size of it," his godfather replied.  "It's incredibly small, less than half the size of one of those Funnel Spiders we've got caged in the courtyard, if I'm reading this right."

"What's it meant to be made of?  Horn?  Would that be legal?"

"Probably.  If you used something like stag antler it would be legal, because stags shed their antlers naturally.  It's not as though you're recreating a real animal, and all sorts of animal parts are used as potions ingredients, after all, so it's borderline at worst.  Horn would make the construct quite light but strong."

Harry pointed to another detail.  "Fangs!  But what's this bit?"

"Crystal eyes," Sirius said, "and a crystal inside the head.  Presumably to make it more versatile, more easily controlled.  And perhaps so the Animator could watch what it was doing from a distance."

"Now _that's_ clever," Harry said admiringly.  "I can control something directly and I reckon I'm close to separating consciousness, but once consciousness is separated my models could only do set things.  Imagine what you could do if you could control it from a distance."

"With something like this you could kill someone," Sirius said grimly.  "It'd be very simple to dip those fangs in poison."

He would have said more but there was a sudden fuss at the top of the stairs, followed by the sound of Remus warning someone to be careful, and Professor Dumbledore appeared, stooping a little to avoid bumping his hat in the narrow aperture.  He took a quick look around, his eyes bright with interest, and stood aside to allow Petuarius Pettifer and Madam Pomfrey into the room.

Andromeda's eyes widened.  "Harry, perhaps you and I should go and make some tea …?" she suggested.

"I wouldn't dream of putting you to the bother, Mrs. Tonks," Dumbledore said smilingly.  "Tea shall – indeed must! – wait awhile.  What a charming little private study this is, Sirius!  I do feel that every laundry cupboard should have one."

Mr. Pettifer was also looking around with great interest, and he chuckled at Dumbledore's comment.  "If only my own house had a similar facility!  Alas, I've never found so much as a useful cupboard such as the one my old friend Henry had in his study."

"The one that goes to the master bedroom?" Harry asked.

"Yes, indeed.  A clever notion, eh?"

"It saves walking up the stairs," Harry agreed.

"I'm beginning to think I should grow a selection of spare skulls," Madam Pomfrey was saying disapprovingly as she examined Ron.  "What on earth will your mother say, young man?  I expect that shoulder's hurting you quite a lot too, isn't it?  I'm not surprised – I saw something similar happen a few years ago after a pupil fell down a set of steps in the north tower.  You dislocated your shoulder but the awkward fall knocked it back into place again when you landed."

"Is that why it hurts so much?" Ron mumbled.

"Hurts?  Of course it hurts, silly boy!  Dislocating a shoulder damages all sorts of soft tissue in the joint!  Now, let me see …."  Madam Pomfrey opened a large, fat leather bag that was sitting at her feet and began to rummage.

"Can you fix it?" Harry asked, alarmed.

"Oh, I can fix it!  But he won't be Flooing or Apparating anywhere for twenty-four hours, so someone should let Molly Weasley know where he is."

"Is it safe for me to mention the kind of accident he had or should I fudge the details do you think?" Remus said quietly to Sirius.  More loudly, he added, "How's his head, Poppy?  That was the biggest concern."

"His head is miraculously unscathed," she replied rather acidly.  "Now leave me to sort out this shoulder, if you please!  I can only hope that this horrible house can provide at least one clean bed for this young man tonight."

"I think we can manage that," Remus said wryly.  "It would be preferable if we could find an exit from this place that comes out nearer our wing though.  It won't be very comfortable for Ron to climb that staircase and then drag all the way around the house."

"There are doors aplenty in here," Professor Dumbledore observed, looking up from the plan of the automaton.  "I suspect you may have found a veritable suite of rooms to explore, and I feel sure there must be more than one exit."

"Perhaps through the room we looked at yesterday?" Pettifer suggested.

Andromeda looked around at this.  "Harry mentioned that room earlier," she said.  "Was it anything like this one?  Because clearly it wasn't the workroom we need to find."

Sirius looked embarrassed.  "I don't think that room's really relevant here …."

"The contents are of a rather indelicate nature," Pettifer explained to her.  "Nothing a lady would wish to see."

Her brows went up at once.  "Are you telling me that Bellatrix was telling the truth?  Grandpapa _did_ have a room full of erotic artworks?"

"Dear me," Dumbledore said almost to himself.

"Unfortunately yes," Pettifer replied calmly.  "It is interesting from a purely intellectual viewpoint, but somewhat morally repugnant.  One would hope that if there is an exit in that area of the house, it will be one which avoids the necessity of us passing through that room.  One would not wish to subject a lady to such sights unnecessarily."

"There's a tea service shaped like – " Harry began to tell her.

"Thank you, Henry," Pettifer interrupted him firmly, and he fixed the teenager with a repressive eye.  "Mrs. Tonks has no desire to know the details."

Andromeda turned away quickly to hide a smile. 

"Tell me later," she said quietly to Harry when Pettifer's attention was elsewhere.

Sirius was more concerned with the plans on the table.  "I've been thinking that we may need Flitwick's advice," he said to Professor Dumbledore.  "I think we can guarantee that when we do find my father's workroom there'll be objects of this kind, and while Harry's getting good at Animation I don't think he'll be equal to handling my father's experiments, let alone disarming them if necessary."

"Filius's advice would certainly be valuable," Dumbledore said after a moment, "but we should proceed with caution, Sirius.  Filius is the head of the International Brotherhood Of Master Animators, you know, and they are the body who advise on international law with regard to these matters.  I would be reluctant to put him in a position where he is obliged to take official notice of certain of your father's peculiarities, especially in the light of a young Animator like Harry being put within reach of books and materials which could be considered undesirable in light of his education."

Sirius stiffened.  "These things could actually harm his abilities?"

"No, no, you misunderstand me!  I am looking at the situation through the eyes of other Master Animators, dear boy."  Dumbledore looked at Sirius over the top of his spectacles.  "Remember that this is Harry we speak of!  His reputation, deserved or otherwise, goes before him.  Our learned colleagues in the Brotherhood are conservative individuals; they may harbour reservations about his exposure to materials that can only be described as Dark.  Filius could be put in a very difficult position."

"Well, we can try to keep Harry away from this stuff," Sirius began dubiously, but Dumbledore shook his head.

"No – no, I think Harry needs far broader scope in his education than many authorities would normally consider proper," he replied.  "I feel it important that he sees these things and understands them.  So rather than create a difficult situation unnecessarily, I think we should wait and assess the extent of your father's work before determining if Filius's involvement is truly necessary.  Besides, if there is one unfortunate side-effect of living an entirely law-abiding magical life, it is that one may find oneself facing things one is entirely unprepared for, and Filius _has_ lived a rather blameless existence where Animation is concerned."

Sirius stared at the Headmaster for a moment, then suddenly grinned.  "I knew there was a reason why I always respected you, Professor!"

Dumbledore's eyes began to twinkle.  "I can't imagine what you mean, Sirius!  Now – I think we have a helpful selection of friends here this afternoon, but perhaps when Remus Floo-calls Ron's parents he could also ask Bill Weasley to join us if he is available …."

 

xXx

 

Harry was all but vibrating with anticipation by the time Bill Weasley followed Remus into the hidden study.  Bill was torn between gazing around in fascination and eyeing his brother's bruises and sling.

"We're both dead when Mum sees you," he concluded wryly.

Ron sighed but Madam Pomfrey, who was finally packing away her bag of medicines, gave a sharp tut. 

"Nonsense," she said briskly.  "He's had a smear of Bruise Balm on the worst bumps, a rubbing of Dr. Stringley's Ligament Liniment on that shoulder, and a small dose of Skele-Gro as a precaution.  A proper night's rest and he'll be as good as new."

"Or the Skele-Gro'll kill me in my sleep," Ron muttered, but he apologised when Madam Pomfrey gave him a sharp look.  "I'll be okay."

"You'd better be, or I'll know the reason why," she retorted.  "Albus, I have other business at the school, so if you don't mind …."

"Maybe you should lie down on the couch for now," Harry suggested, when she had left. 

Ron agreed to this reluctantly.  "I wanted to see what was in the next room," he said rather plaintively, as Harry transfigured one of the leather cushions into a proper pillow.

"I think you'll see plenty from where you are," Remus told him wryly. 

"Don't worry, we'll make sure you don't miss anything," Sirius added.  "If anyone has a right to see what's in here it's you, after the way you discovered it."

"The only question is which of these two doors we should try first," Mr. Pettifer remarked.

Sirius squinted thoughtfully.  "That door there," he said, pointing to one on the far left-hand wall from to the stairs, "is roughly in the same direction as the other room we found."

"I'm out of the loop," Bill said, surprised.  "You found _another_ hidden room?"

"Sirius's granddad kept his kinky porn collection in it," Harry explained.

"Henry my boy," Pettifer said mildly, "there is really no need for vulgarity, even with _that_ topic."

"Sorry, sir," Harry said, a little abashed at this second gentle rebuke.

"Ah – really?" Bill asked, turning startled eyes on Sirius.  "He kept a collection of - ?"

"I'm afraid so," Sirius said wryly.

"Bill's used to that kind of stuff," Ron said from the couch.  "The Egyptians were dead kinky too.  You should see some of their murals."

"I knew I shouldn't have taken you into Panhesi's tomb," Bill said.  "I told you – they were _dancing._   It was a celebration for the god Min."

"And he's the god who wears bandages everywhere except – "

"Returning to the subject," Andromeda interrupted, amused.

"I think we could take our pick, really," Remus said hastily.  "It would be useful to see if there's a passage that comes out near the other room, but we also need to find Mr. Black's workroom, so …."

"I vote for the door opposite me then," Ron said, pointing.  "I'll be able to see everything from here."

"I concur," Dumbledore said, smiling.  He fished a packet out of one pocket.  "Sherbet lemon before we start, anyone?"

Upon examination they discovered that there were wards on both doors, and neither had conventional handles or locks on them, only deceptively simple latches.  Bill and Sirius set to work on the door Ron had suggested; it took nearly an hour and several drops of Sirius's blood to release the ward, during which time Dumbledore conjured up a tea tray and the rest of the party settled into the couches and armchairs to drink tea, eat bourbon biscuits and speculate on the possible contents of the room. 

Harry, far more restless than the others, spent much of the time either peering over Bill and Sirius's shoulders or pulling random books off the shelves to examine.  After observing his perambulations for a while, Mr. Pettifer finally reached out as Harry passed his chair and took hold of his arm, making him sit down on the arm of the chair.  He put a cup of tea into the teenager's hand.

"Sometimes you remind me very much of your father," he said mildly.  "He too seemed incapable of standing still when he was young.  But never fear, all that energy shall be put to good use by and by.  I have not forgotten your lesson."

Harry consented to sit still for a while.  "Do you think Mr. Black brought other people here?" he asked after a moment or two.

"The number of chairs here would certainly suggest it," Professor Dumbledore replied.  "Besides, Harry, when one is a great experimenter or collector one of life's little pleasures is to show one's inventions or acquisitions to like-minded friends."

Harry frowned.  "I get that old Mr. Black would want to show off his, um, statues and stuff.  That's why they were all labelled.  But if you invent things – like a really brilliant automaton – isn't it a bit risky showing it to people?"

Dumbledore looked at him over the top of his spectacles.  "In what way?"

"What if they nick your idea?"

"Such an act would be beneath a gentleman wizard," Mr. Pettifer told him.

"Or an upstanding witch," Andromeda added rather pointedly.

"Forgive me - I spoke generically.  Intellectual theft, Henry, is as disgraceful as any other form of theft."

"But if what Mr. Black was doing was illegal anyway, wouldn't that be different?" Harry persisted.

"Not at all," Pettifer said emphatically.  "One does not lower oneself.  Scrupulous honesty in all one's dealings with others is as much the mark of a gentleman as good manners."

This seemed to plunge Harry into deep thought.  Sirius, who had paused to take a sip of his tea, raised his brows meaningfully at Remus, whose mouth twitched wryly.  He shot a quick glance at Dumbledore; the headmaster's eyes were twinkling again as he nibbled cheerfully on a biscuit.  When he looked at Ron, the teenager was watching Harry and Pettifer with nearly as deep a look of contemplation.

Harry had his own set of morals, most of which were rather more expedient than Petuarius Pettifer's rigid code of honour allowed for.  But he also respected the old man and was at least prepared to listen to his advice; which was perhaps as well, for the look on Pettifer's face suggested the two of them would be continuing this conversation in the near future.  It would be interesting to see if Harry's moral code would stand fast or begin to adapt itself as a result.

"I think we've nearly got this," Bill remarked, breaking the silence.  Sirius put his mug down and turned his attention back to the door, and within a minute or two the pair of them broke the ward and lifted the latch, although neither made a move to open the door properly until the others had gathered behind them.

"Well," Sirius said, "let's see what's in here."

He pushed the door open.  For a moment there was nothing but darkness beyond the threshold, then slowly the room began to brighten.  It had its own lights, apparently set to come on automatically, and instead of the usual lamps or candles it was a steady consistent glow throughout the room with no clearly discernible source.  And as it grew stronger the size and contents of the room were revealed.

It was more than twice the size of the study, being roughly the same size as the hidden room that housed Mercurius Black's collection of erotica which it probably backed onto.  In contents it could not be more different though.  Peering around Sirius's arm, Harry was struck by the thought that it vaguely resembled Professor Snape's private workroom at Hogwarts.  The walls were lined with glass-fronted cabinets, while the central space held three sizeable workbenches, each of which had different attributes and different equipment on them.  The floor was laid with large, glazed white tiles.  Down the far side of the room a long space had been left clear, creating a broad walkway, and in the middle of the opposite wall was a wide, square chalkboard covered in sketchy diagrams and calculations.  There were three other doors into the room, two at either end of the opposite wall and one at the bottom of the room.  All three were secured with multiple bolts.

"Intriguing," Professor Dumbledore said softly.  "Gentlemen, Mrs. Tonks - we should proceed with great caution, I believe."

"I think there's another ward across the doorway," Harry offered.  He could detect an odd sort of magical 'shadow' over the doorway that came and went when he blinked.

"Bill?" Sirius asked, and Bill ran his wand over the threshold.

"There is," he confirmed, and he glanced back at Harry with a grin.  "You're good at this!  I don't think there's anything to worry about though - it feels like it's there as a precaution to stop things like gas or vapour escaping."  He reached out and his arm passed through the doorway without visible detriment.  "Yep, it's fine.  Nicely done, though - whoever set this up knew what he was doing."

"Is there an anti-Apparition element?" Remus asked.

Bill ran his wand over it again.  "No - at least, I don't think so.  I have to admit that this isn't a type of ward I'm very familiar with though."

"Portkeys can't be blocked," Harry pointed out.

"That's not entirely true, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said.  "There are measures capable of blocking portkeys, but the knowledge of them resides almost entirely with the goblins."

"No surprises there then," Sirius said briskly.  "Right, there's no point dithering on the doorstep - shall we go inside?"

"Tell me what you find," Ron called glumly from his couch.

Sirius stepped across the threshold.  There was a brief whispering sensation of the ward across his skin, but that was all.  Inside the room smelled of old air and a curious melange of herbs, chemicals and metallic scents.  Nor was it silent in there; there was a faint hissing sound like an old-fashioned gas tap in the background, a rhythmic tapping noise, and some faint scrabbling.  

The hair came up on the back of his neck.  One didn't become an Animagus without an element of transference between the human and animal forms, and Sirius had learned to trust his canine side.  His eyes scanned the room warily, and his wand had been at the ready before he stepped through the doorway. 

"I think there's definitely something loose in here," he reported to the others.  "Moony, get my back please.  Bill, you're with me."  And Sirius changed shape.

"I begin to think that I made a mistake when I decided not to pursue the Animagus transformation in my youth," Pettifer remarked, watching. 

"Unfortunately, one has no control over the shape one assumes," Dumbledore replied contemplatively as he watched Padfoot beginning to painstakingly quarter the workroom, "and while I am sure there are virtues to every animal form, sometimes the practical applications for a witch or wizard seem rather hard to find."

Harry was half-listening to this and was suddenly struck by a surprising thought.  He turned to Dumbledore, but remembered just in time that it was a rather personal question which, at the very least, shouldn't be asked in company.  Apparently guessing what he was thinking, the headmaster gave him a tiny smile and popped another sherbet lemon into his mouth.

"And do I recall Black saying that young Henry's father also achieved the transformation?" Pettifer asked.

"So I am told.  I regret never having seen it."

"He turned into a stag," Harry said.

"Indeed?  I wonder if he ever showed your grandfather?  Henry would have liked that very much."  "I don't know."

"James was very close to his father, especially after Mrs. Potter passed away," Andromeda said.  "I'm sure he would have shown him."

They were interrupted by Padfoot giving a sudden short, sharp bark and diving under one of the benches.  There was a scrabbling sound - Bill raced around one side of the table and Remus the other - there was a loud _crack!_ \- and whatever Padfoot had found shot out from between them at startling speed.

Remus swore.  "Quick!  Stop it!" he yelled.

A flash of quicksilver resolved itself into a snake-like creature that whipped across the smooth tiled floor.  Bill flicked a fast hex at it, just barely clipping the end of its tail, and the creature seemed to make a desperate leap for the doorway, actually flying several inches into the air above the floor. 

Harry froze just outside the door frame.  He could _feel_ the flow of the magic running through the creature, precise and beautiful and awe-inspiring in its complexity; all he could think was that he wanted to know _how_ Gaius Black had done it.  Andromeda, showing enviably sharp reflexes, snapped out another Stunning Hex that caught the body of the creature and lifted it high into the air but also inadvertently dragged it through the doorway.  Harry saw it twist – knew that it hadn't been stopped, only interrupted – saw it turning –

 _"Frigidius!"_ he gasped, flinging out his wand-hand, and the power, strong and close to the surface of his mind, leapt out.

The snake froze in mid-air – quite literally – mere inches from his hand; the air around it turned arctic, frost formed on the rugs, furnishings and ornaments and everyone's breath suddenly came in thick white clouds. 

 _"Arresto incantatum,"_ Professor Dumbledore said, his voice ringing out calmly across the icy room, and the frost everywhere began to retreat.

"Blimey!" Ron said from his sofa, breaking the startled silence that followed this.  He grinned in a shaky way at Harry.  "You don't do things by halves, do you, mate?"

"Sorry about that.  I hit it a bit harder than I meant to."  Harry rubbed his arms, where his hair stood on end from the sudden cold, and hoped he didn't look as embarrassed as he felt.  His reaction had been dangerously slow.  He looked across to Mr. Pettifer and Professor Dumbledore and felt his face heat.  "Sorry, sir."

"Quite understandable, Harry," the headmaster said, unperturbed.  "Let us contain this creature for study before your spell wears off."

"We'll keep looking," Remus called from the workroom.  "Keep a sharp eye out - if there's one, there's probably more."

"Why did you use a Freezing Charm, Henry?" Mr. Pettifer asked, as Andromeda found Remus's transfigured lamp from earlier and changed it into a large glass jar with a screw-top lid.

"Freezing locks up moving parts," Harry replied, recovering himself.  "Professor Flitwick told me a good, strong Freezing Charm can at least slow automata and mostly it'll stop them too."

"I see.  Very well.  We must ensure it is secure before it awakes ….  Does it need air to breathe, I wonder?"

"No," Harry said confidently.  "Automata are just objects – they're not alive."

He used a simple Levitation Charm to move the slowly-reanimating snake into the jar and Andromeda capped it quickly, grimacing as she did so.  She thrust it into Harry's hands and almost at once the snake came back to life and began attacking the smooth sides of the jar, fangs extended.  But it made no impression and after a moment or two it subsided and curled up at the bottom of the jar, watching Harry through venomous red crystal eyes.  Harry was remarkably unconcerned by this.

"Isn't it brilliant?" he said, staring at it in fascination.  "That's amazing – look, it's made from _sand_ , that's why it moves like a real snake!"

"You know, I'm not all that keen on snakes," Ron said, eyeing his friend in askance.  "'Specially not the ones that aren't really snakes and can jump and stuff."

"I'm afraid I have to agree," Andromeda added, shuddering.  "Anything made by my Uncle Gaius is more than a little questionable to me."

"It is certainly intriguing," Pettifer remarked temperately, "but the most important question must be – is it poisonous?  It seems rather eager to bite."

"It probably is," Harry said absently, turning the jar so that he could get a better look at the snake.  "What's the point of making a snake automata that _isn't_ poisonous?"

"A question such as that may be answered in so many ways," Dumbledore said, almost to himself.  "Harry, dear boy, if you wish to study the creature, we must secure the jar and you should take it to school with you for Professor Flitwick to see.  He is in a far better position to show you how to study it safely."

"But it's already secure, sir!" Harry said, surprised.  "I won't let it get loose."

Sirius suddenly appeared in the doorway, back in human form.  "I heard that," he said.  "Harry, it's probably full of Dark magic and at some point you're bound to want to take it out of the jar.  I don't have the same enthusiasm for snakes of _any_ kind, living or otherwise, that you do and I don't want it roaming loose in our part of the house." 

"Keep practicing that tone of voice," Andromeda told him, amused.  "You'll need it when your own son starts trying to bring live newts and earthworms into the house."

"I can ward the jar," Harry muttered.  He was offended by the implication that he was no better than a toddler demanding odd pets.  A vague memory of his cousin Dudley demanding a pet rabbit surfaced at the back of his mind and had to be suppressed.

"In that case you can seal and Imperturb it as well," Sirius told him firmly.

"Don't you have some dark corners to sniff around?" Harry demanded, his tone a little snippier than his godfather had been accustomed to hear from him of late.

"Don't you have a duelling lesson now?" Sirius retorted.

"Isn't it time the pair of you grew up already if we're going to chase Dark creatures around your old man's workshop?" Remus demanded loudly from the workroom.  "A sniffer-dog would be very helpful right now!"

Sirius shot a meaningful look at Harry, then shrank back into his canine form and trotted back into the workroom.  Harry followed him to the door.

"Am I allowed to come in yet?" he asked, a little aggressively.

Remus and Bill were crouching down by one of the cabinets, examining something that Padfoot was snuffling at, but Remus looked up at Harry's voice.

"I don't think so," he said mildly.  "Let's make certain there's nothing actively on the loose first, please, Harry."

"I was helping track them earlier.  I don't see why this is different."

"Harry, mate," Ron said from the couch.  Harry swung around to look at him.  "Give it a rest, eh?" the redhead suggested.  "I don't reckon anything's going anywhere.  Just let 'em check everything's under control before you start poking around.  It's not like you haven't got the snake already."

Harry wavered.  He wasn't impressed by this argument, which wasn't particularly eloquent and was clearly designed to draw him off.  He was, however, swayed by Ron's greyish pallor and the way he was slumped back against the cushions.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked, roughness covering his concern.

"I'm fine …."

"You should be resting," Andromeda said, going to Ron's side and feeling first his forehead and then his pulse. 

Professor Dumbledore also went to lay a hand on Ron's head.

"I think a change of location would be beneficial," he said, after a moment.  "Somewhere less stimulating, where you can rest properly.  Do you think you can walk to the other side of the house, if Harry lends you his shoulder to lean on?"

"Reckon I'd better try, sir," Ron said and he slowly and reluctantly dragged himself out of the depths of the couch.

"I shall provide an escort," Mr. Pettifer put in.  "Please tell Black and Lupin where we are going, Mrs. Tonks."

It was a slow walk from the relatives' wing to the old servants' quarters, and Harry was left in no doubt that Ron was feelingly genuinely miserable, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.  He talked about being fine lying on the sofa in the living room, but Harry persuaded him to climb the stairs to the tower and put his friend to bed in his own room.  Ron was out like a light before Harry could even tug his shoes off.  He made the redhead as comfortable as he could, but hesitated at the door.  He didn't like the way Ron had suddenly turned so grey and faint and didn't like leaving him unattended, although he seemed to be sleeping normally.  He knew a couple of simple alarm charms, though, and finally set one on the bedpost above his friend's head that would alert him when Ron stirred.

When he returned to the living room, Mr. Pettifer was waiting for him.

"Shall we proceed with our lesson?" the old man suggested.

Harry's first thought was that there were far more important things going on that he needed to see.  A duelling lesson could happen at any time, after all, and he said as much. 

Pettifer studied his face for a long moment before replying.

"Do you think this is all you must learn, Henry?" he asked finally.

Harry blinked at him, perplexed.  "Sir?"

"The fine art of charming a replica snake to attack, the myriad ways of repelling a host of curses?  Is this all that we seek to teach you here?"

Harry felt a touch of wariness at this.  "No, sir."

"No?"  Pettifer raised his brows.  "What else do we teach you, then?"

"I'm learning to kill Lord Voldemort," Harry said flatly.  "That's what it's all about.  Isn't it?"

"With a toy snake?  Do you think that will do it?"

"It might," he said, a little defensively.  "I don't know."

"But you think this is all about training you to become a killer?"

Harry chewed his lip.  His instinctive reaction was to snap, to say something sharp and cutting.  He would have done so had the question been asked by almost anyone else, but for some unaccountable reason he couldn't summon the necessary rudeness with Mr. Pettifer.

"Yes, sir," he managed finally.  "I think that's what it's always about."

Pettifer nodded, pursing his lips thoughtfully for a moment.  "What would you say if I were to tell you that it is actually a matter of survival?" he suggested.

"I'd ask you whose survival you meant," Harry replied.

"Your own, of course."

"I think everyone knows that's not the biggest deal," he said curtly.

"And I would say that you misunderstand me."  Pettifer gestured to the sofa.  "Please, Henry – sit?"

He didn't want to, but the request was earnest so he did as he was asked, taking a seat opposite the elder wizard.  Pettifer studied his face for a moment or two before sighing deeply.




"I feel very much that the quality of my friendship with your parents and grandparents has been judged and found wanting," he said.  "I should never have permitted Dumbledore to overrule me in the matter of your fosterage when your parents died."

Harry twitched.  "I don't understand, sir."

"No, my boy, and that is the crux of the matter.  You have been raised in a very alien society to that which you were born into.  Furthermore - forgive me, but association with you has raised in my mind the gravest concerns about the ability of your mother's relatives to adequately prepare you for _any_ adult life, let alone that of a wizard of rank.  I cast no aspersions upon Black and Lupin; they are doing their best for you.  But it is most unfortunate that your formative years appear to have been spent under the guidance of individuals who seem to have made it their business not to guide you at all."

"My aunt and uncle hate me, sir."  Harry felt his stomach twist with something close to shame and he didn't know why.  It hadn't been his fault after all - and yet it still hurt that he had been worth so little to his mother's sister.  "They didn't want to take me in, they didn't want me to go to Hogwarts, and they were pretty glad to see the back of me when Sirius came back.  They said I was a freak."

"I see.  They are bigots."  Pettifer sighed again.  "Well, they are hardly unique in that respect.  Wizards have suffered at the hands of Muggles since time immemorial, and in fairness they have suffered at the hands of wizards more often than we like to admit.  But it grieves me that you were forced to endure such treatment when it could have been avoided.  I was persuaded to believe that your safety depended upon you living with your aunt.  I should have questioned that assertion more rigorously – but I did not and for that I owe you an apology, Henry."

"No you don't, sir," Harry said, embarrassed.  "I mean – it was Dumbledore who said – "

"Albus Dumbledore is a genius in numerous ways, and I respect him greatly as a man and a wizard," Pettifer interrupted.  "That does _not_ mean that his actions should go entirely unquestioned or that he is incapable of making mistakes, as I am sure he would tell you himself."

As Dumbledore had, in fact, said something very like that to Harry once, the teenager couldn't say much to refute this.

"Well, this is beside the point," Pettifer continued more mildly.  "The important point now is not how mistakes were made, but how best to right them again.  I think there will be no duelling lesson today, Henry.  There is more than one way to teach a man to survive, and more than one form of survival.  Today, I think, you and I should instead talk of our society's structure and of your rightful place in it.  It is time for you to understand what was expected of you from the moment your grandfather acknowledged you as your father's heir."

 

xXx

 

Harry returned to the hidden rooms nearly two hours later.  He was unusually quiet, although it felt to him that his brain might never switch off again.  This summer holiday seemed to have been nothing but one long, intense information dump and he was starting to wonder if he'd really been so closed off since he came to live with Remus and Sirius that he'd managed to miss so many things that he needed to know.  The uncomfortable truth was that he might well have been, and not just with his godparents.

In his absence the others had been busy.  Harry was surprised to find a variety of tough, clear glass containers lined up on the floor just inside the doorway, each one containing a … thing.  The first of these was the snake he'd helped capture, but the rest varied.  Some were moving; many were not, although they looked none the less alarming for that.  The scaled dog creature he and Ron had encountered in the study was among them. 

"There you are," Sirius called from the end of the room and when he beckoned Harry went to him.  "Is Ron all right?"

"He's asleep," Harry replied, his eyes running over the worktables in fascination.  "I set a charm in case he needs me.  Mr. Pettifer's gone home."

"Fair enough.  Dumbledore left a little while ago too.  We think we've made this place safe now, so feel free to poke around.  Just be careful."

"There weren't as many booby-traps as we expected," Remus added. 

"I don't think even Uncle Gaius would want to make this place difficult to use," Andromeda commented.  "Think of the annoyance of having to disarm traps every time you came in here."

The three worktables had different surfaces, Harry saw now - one of hardwood that looked a little like a carpenter's bench, one with a fine cover of polished steel, and one made of a slab of polished black marble.  The one with the steel surface had a sink, taps and draining area at one end, all moulded out of the same sheet of metal.  The wooden bench was fitted with vices and clamps of varying sizes.  And the marble bench had an area at one end with Bunsen burners and similar apparatus, while at the other were several carved dips and depressions of different sizes.  Each bench had a central area that was smooth for working on.  There were cupboards and racks under each one, too, holding all sorts of equipment - the woodworking bench held racks of saws, drills, chisels and so on, most of them tiny and delicate, far more delicate than would be used by most carpenters, while the steel and marble benches held metal and glass vessels similar to the equipment in the potions labs at Hogwarts.

"This is amazing," Harry said, carefully examining the tiniest hand-drill he'd ever seen.  It fitted easily into the palm of his hand and surely needed magic to operate it, for it was too delicate for fingers. 

"I have to admit, this is one of the most incredible workrooms I've ever seen," Sirius agreed, looking around.  "It makes the one in the basement look pretty average by comparison.  And there's a small fortune in equipment and materials here.  I'm a bit surprised Snape hasn't mentioned it, but it's possible he doesn't know - he never had the same relationship with my father that he did with our grandfather.  My father was a pretty skilled potion-maker, but it wasn't anything like his primary interest of course."

"No wonder he could make things like that spider on the plans outside," Harry said.  "I had stacks of trouble making the joints on my dragon, but with tools like these ...." 

He drew his wand and charmed the tiny drill to stand upright above his palm.  With an effort he was able to make it slowly turn, but the movement was clumsy and operating it efficiently would take far more finesse than he was capable of on his first attempt.  He shook his head and carefully returned the drill to the rack.

"That's one way to fine-tune your levitation charms," Andromeda remarked.

"Yeah."  Harry looked around again, noting shelf after shelf of materials.  "You've found loads of creatures," he said eventually, gesturing towards the containers.

"There were some interesting notebooks here as well," Sirius said.  "I'm afraid Dumbledore took several away with him, but there are a few he seemed to think would be all right for you to read.  We've put them in the other room and you can take them back with you."

Harry was decidedly put out by this.  "What's he going to do with the others?"

"Give them to Flitwick, I expect.  We're going to send most of the automata up to Hogwarts as well."

"But if they were made with Dark magic or anything like that, Professor Flitwick'll take them apart or destroy them, won't he?"

"I don't think we could keep them intact," Sirius pointed out dryly.  "I really don't think anyone would _want_ to.  Several of those things look as though they can bite or sting, and the dog-like one with the scales breathes fire, for crying out loud.  Somehow I just don't think it could be house-trained."

"Hm.  Well, I'm keeping the snake," Harry said.

"If you absolutely must," Remus said, "but I don't feel very comfortable with the idea.  It stays in the jar, please."

"Why do you both seem to think I'll take it out of the jar?" Harry demanded.

"Because it's the logical thing to do if you want to study it?"

"I could control it," he grumbled.  "It's a snake.  I can talk to snakes."

"Harry, I can talk to my mother's portrait at Grimmauld Place, but that doesn't mean she'll listen to me," Sirius said, rather exasperated.  "It stays in the jar, or we send it up to Flitwick.  Your choice."

"I don't know why people have such a problem with snakes," Harry said.  "I don't _like_ them, but they're just legless lizards."

"That can bite," Remus pointed out.  "Besides, this one isn't really a snake, remember?"

"Same difference."

Sirius took a deep breath.  "Is it me, or is this summer holiday going on for a really long time?" he said conversationally.

"I love you too!" Harry said indignantly.

"Well, if you'd stop regressing to your childhood and being so bloody argumentative for no good reason – "

"You don't know a damn thing about my childhood!" Harry flared.

"Hey!" Remus said sharply, staring at the two of them.  "That's enough, thank you!  Harry, I don't know what on earth has got into you, but this is not the place for it.  There are too many volatile substances around here.  If you can't keep your temper, perhaps you'd better go and keep Ron company until dinner."

"Fine!" Harry snapped, and he stalked out of the room.

"What the hell was that about?" he heard a bewildered Bill Weasley say in the background, just as he reached the foot of the stairs.  Harry paused, listening. 

"No idea," Sirius said.  He sounded tired.

"It's hot, sticky and airless," Andromeda remarked.  "Perhaps there's a storm brewing?  Someone as sensitive as Harry might pick up on that."

For a split second Harry considered storming back in there to protest the charge of being sensitive.  Then the will to fight seemed to drain out of him.  He sat down in the nearest chair and rubbed at his scar for a moment.  It wasn't hurting, just itching as it sometimes did when he was hot, but that was enough of a reminder to make him check his own mental shields.  A sudden outburst of Voldemort would be a pretty crap end to a very mixed day, and if he was going to end up in bed next to Ron he didn't want it to be because he'd had one of his 'funny turns'.

There was a pile of books on a small table between the chair and the sofa.  Some of them had marbled board covers, others were of worn black or brown leather, and several of them were tied around with laces.  They looked old and they were clearly notebooks – presumably those of Gaius Black's books that Dumbledore had deemed safe for Harry to read.  That rankled a little, but after a moment Harry picked them all up and decided to take them back to his room on the other side of the house.  He could read and keep an eye on Ron at the same time.

 

xXx

 

Andromeda's prediction came true less than an hour after she and Bill had left.

Ron awoke just before dinner, looking better than he had earlier but feeling achy and complaining about the heat.  In less than three hours the weather had gone from uncomfortably humid to suffocating, and cooling charms didn't seem to have much effect on the temperature - "They won't if a storm's coming," Remus said.  The four of them picked at a salad when by rights they should all have been ravenous, having had no lunch earlier, then sat around just outside the sitting room doors, trying to read or just vegetate.  Harry avoided conversation; he was feeling ready to climb the walls at the unpleasant languidness that competed with a restless wish to move around. 

He was just muttering something about getting his broom out – flying had to be better than sitting around – when the sky began to darken ominously.

"I think that's our cue to go inside," Sirius remarked, and they dragged the chairs indoors.

They left one long window open to let what little air there was circulate and Harry took up a position next to it.  He was still contemplating getting his broom out, and apparently this was clear from his face for Sirius said, "Let it be.  The last thing I want is for you to get struck by lightning out there when this storm makes its mind up to break."

"I've flown in storms before," Harry said irritably.  "We've played Quidditch in really crap conditions."

"Even so," Sirius said, hanging onto his temper with a superhuman effort.

"I'm going to go nuts stuck in here."

"It'll be easier when it breaks," Remus said peaceably.

"Bit like my Mum's temper," Ron remarked.  He gave Remus an anxious look.  "Did someone tell her where I am?"

"I Floo-called her earlier.  She wasn't exactly happy about it, but she accepted that you were better to stay put for the night."  Ron gave him a rather disbelieving look, which made Remus smile.  "It's all right.  She didn't shout, although she did say a few things.  But it could have been much worse and she didn't come straight over here to examine you, which says a lot."

"Hm."

The room was becoming really dark.  Sirius was just on the verge of lighting the lamps when a brilliant flash lit up the sky. 

"About time!" he said, relieved.

Remus was counting softly under his breath; when he saw his partner looking at him he grinned sheepishly.  "Sorry – old habit."

There was a low, distant rumble of thunder.  Harry sighed impatiently.

"Is this going to be one of those feeble storms that's all lightning and no thunder?"

"Doubt it," Sirius said, peering out of the window.  "Too much build up – yep, there's the rain."

A few big drops hit the patio unimpressively.  They were joined by a few more.  In less than a minute the rain was hammering on the uneven stone paving and Sirius had reluctantly shut the window.  More lightning flashed and the thunder this time arrived more quickly.

"I reckon this is settling in for the night," Ron remarked an hour later, when he and Harry were getting ready for bed.  Mercifully the temperature had dropped, and with it Harry's temper, but the rain was lashing, there was a cool breeze and the storm showed no sign of tapering off.  The room was lit up every few minutes by lightning, and there had been cracks of thunder like rifle-shots.  Hedwig hunched up on her perch with her back to the window, ruffling her feathers, and Rosebud crouched on Ron's pile of clothes, looking broody and uneasy and flicking the tip of her tail occasionally.

"That'll please Remus.  He's been going on about his vegetable patch being parched ever since I came home." 

Harry finished folding up his clothes and took his glasses off, putting them on the bedside table.  He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged inwardly and stepped out of his boxers as well.  It was still too hot to wear even that little in bed and it wasn't as though Ron hadn't seen him naked before.  Not that Ron saw him naked this time; he was too busy finding a safe place for his wand, scrubbing his scalp with his free hand and yawning a little.  Harry was struck by the domesticity of it as he slipped beneath the single sheet on his bed.

Predictably, Ron kept his boxers on; this was disappointing but not incurable, in Harry's opinion.  The redhead climbed into bed, settling himself comfortably against the pillows, and yawned again, idly scratching the still-sparse coppery hair between his nipples.  He looked thoroughly at home.  Harry grinned.

"Comfy?" he asked innocently.

Ron knew that tone; he gave Harry a sideways look from under his lashes.  "Yep.  Though I reckon I slept too long this afternoon and won't be able to sleep now."

"That won't be a problem."

"Yeah?  Well, I'm pretty bruised, you know.  You'll have to be gentle with me."

"We'll have to come up with a way for you to relax and let me do all the work," Harry said slyly.

Ron smirked.  "Works for me.  Got some ideas then?"

"Nope."  Harry reached a hand under his pillow and pulled out a certain book Sirius had given him at Easter.  "I'll bet this has though."

"I might as well die happy," Ron agreed.

"I'll make sure not to kill you," Harry assured him, opening the book at random.  "I mean, think what your mum would say if they couldn't screw your coffin lid down."


	12. Chapter 12

The following day was spent exploring the rest of the complex of rooms, although they had all been opened up and checked over the day before, while Harry was talking to Mr. Pettifer. 

On the far side of the workroom were two more rooms that opened out from it.  Both were smaller and empty, although they had some odd features.  One was very cold and dark, with a tiled floor and a heavily barred door, and still held the vestiges of a deeply unpleasant smell.  Harry couldn't put a finger on what the stink was, but it was fairly obvious that Sirius and Remus both knew - Sirius in particular, for he refused to go further into the room than the doorway and looked grey at the odour.

"Reminds me a bit of Azkaban," was all he would say, when Harry asked.  The teenager made up his mind to ask Remus about it later in private, although he didn't hold out a lot of hope for getting an answer, judging by the older man's expression.

The other room was clean and dry, with a polished hardwood floor - and it was utterly dead to sound.  The soundproofing was so effective that it was actually a little creepy to stand in the middle of the room and talk.

"What would these rooms be used for?" Ron asked.

"The cold one is obviously for storage of ... something perishable," Remus said.  "But this one - I can't think of anything specific off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are plenty of uses in the more esoteric branches of magic for soundproofing.  Severus would be a good person to ask about that.  Or Flitwick, of course, since this was a Master Animator's workshop."

The door from the workshop that seemed most likely to open into the 'secret museum' actually opened into a tiny connecting passage.  One door off this did indeed open into the room containing all the erotica, while another opened into the study area next to the workroom.  A third accessed a room with exotic deep pile rugs on the floor and a selection of comfortable leather chairs that matched the ones in the study, and it was lined with wooden racks containing bottles and jars.  An enormous Turkish hookah stood next to one of the chairs.

"What's this?" Harry demanded, bemused.  "A secret boozer?"

Sirius was grinning.  "Not quite!  The drinks are mostly a side entertainment."

"Is it a drug den?" Ron asked, his eyes nearly popping out.

"Partly," Remus replied.  He looked around the room and shook his head.  He gestured to one set of racks.  "Snuff jars," he said.  "There's a whole wall of different tobaccos on the left.  And those over there are - well, yes, drugs.  All manner of potions and powders and dried vegetable matter intended to give you a buzz.  The fourth wall has alcohol, mostly spirits of the stronger variety, including Absinthe.  It's a sort of smoking room, I suppose."

"This is definitely another legacy of my grandfather," Sirius said, amused.  "I used to think it was odd that everyone talked under their breath about him holding drug-fuelled parties when he didn't even approve of people smoking in the house.  But if he was holding them in _here_ , then it all makes sense.  This room is well ventilated, which is why you can't smell very much of anything, but there's enough opium in the containers over there to knock out Diagon Alley during the Christmas shopping rush.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg, believe me."

"Of course it's very handy for the other room," Remus added, "so one gets one's guests nicely juiced up, then one takes them through to observe the latest additions to one's collection of pornography."

"And with the right company, things could get extremely lively," Sirius finished for him.

"And then they'd visit the bath-house, maybe?" Harry suggested, bright-eyed.

"Actually, I think they'd be more likely to start out in the bath-house - not that I'm an expert on drug-fuelled orgies," Sirius said.  "The only thing that puzzles me is why the entrance to the bath-house is from my father's study on the ground floor.  It's inconvenient to say the least."

"There must be another hidden door in there," Harry said at once.  "One that leads up here, like my grandfather's cupboard that leads to his bedroom."

"We haven't found anything yet," Remus said doubtfully, "and we've been over the study several times now."

"Doesn't mean it's not there," Sirius said with a shrug.  "It's the only explanation that makes sense.  Think about it - "  And he dropped his voice slightly, assuming the glacially perfect accent that characterised so many of the older purebloods.  _"My dear, I have some very important business to conduct with our friends.  Pray do not feel obliged to wait up, as we may be some time."_

"Then they all go into the study, looking like they're about to do something really boring but necessary, and nip down the stairs to take a bath," Harry concluded.  "Sneaky."

"Not really," Sirius replied.  "I'd be staggered if a beady old girl like my grandmother didn't know exactly what was going on all along.  There's always evidence of some kind that gives the game away, and there's no way on earth that she couldn't know about the bath-house.  Regulus and I knew about it when we were kids, it's not exactly well hidden."

"Well, that's beside the point," Remus said.  "The big question is what on earth we do with the contents of these rooms."

"I think the workroom can stay," Sirius decided, the Harry's relief.  "It'd be criminal to dismantle it.  It makes sense to leave the small study too.  I'm ... not sure about the two empty rooms.  But this one and the porn collection - well, I'm open to suggestions at this point.  In all honesty, I don't think we can afford to keep them when this complex of rooms could be used for much better purposes, but right now there's a question mark over what to do with the contents."

"Pettifer's right," Remus said.  "Whatever else you do, the contents must be catalogued, for safety's sake if nothing else."

"I suspect Pettifer himself would like to be in charge of cataloguing the pornography," Sirius said, a little amused.  "We need someone methodically-minded to catalogue this one, then, and don't you start volunteering, Moony.  You've got your hands full with the library already."

"Granger," Harry said, before Remus could respond to this.  He looked at Ron.  "She'd do a good job, right?  And we could trust her not to nick any of the stuff in here, which is really important."

"She might be willing to help Mr. Pettifer with the other room, too," Ron suggested. 

Remus made a pained sound in his throat.

"She's not squeamish, you know," Harry pointed out, and Ron looked rather gratified at what was, after all, quite high praise of Hermione from Harry.

"I still don't think it's right," Remus muttered.

"She's seventeen," Sirius said firmly.  "How about we let her decide?"

 

xXx

 

Ron's owl to Hermione brought her to the Manor straight after lunch.  She Flooed from The Burrow, bearing stern messages from Mrs. Weasley to her son about not overdoing it and making sure he was home for dinner that evening, which Ron rolled his eyes at but reluctantly agreed to.  Apparently she wasn't upset, though, and this was productive of raised brows from Sirius and Remus, although they both decided it was better not to comment for the time being. 

Mr. Pettifer arrived shortly after to give Harry his afternoon lesson, and genially requested the assistance of Sirius again ("Just as long as I don't end up swinging from the light brackets this time," Sirius said ruefully), but Hermione declined to join them, and she and Remus disappeared upstairs to start work on the cataloguing.  She seemed quite thrilled to have been asked to help, and the others correctly assumed that the job she did would be outstandingly thorough.  Mr. Pettifer also professed himself charmed to be of assistance with the other room. 

"You know, Henry," he observed, as they walked through the house to the ballroom, "I shall be quite disappointed when you return to school.  I haven't enjoyed myself so much in years."

"School's going to seem a bit slow after this," Harry agreed.

He was less certain of that statement the following morning.  Breakfast brought the mail and with the mail came his school letter.

"What gear have they said you need this year?" Remus asked, putting a dish of kippers and another of buttered bread on the table.

Harry wasn't looking at the list of equipment.  He was staring at a badge that had dropped out of the envelope.

Sirius drew a sharp breath.  "They've never made you a prefect?"

"Nope."  Harry handed it over, feeling almost as stunned as if it _had_ been a prefect's badge.  Instead it was enamelled with a pair of crossed silver broomsticks against a green background.

"Quidditch Captain!"  Sirius let out a little crow of satisfaction.  "About bloody time!"

"I s'pose Snape couldn't find anyone else who was suitable," Harry managed.  This was something he really hadn't been expecting, given how bad his relationship was with Snape.  But with Terence Higgs leaving school and Draco Malfoy out of the way ....  Now the only really burning question was who the new Slytherin prefects for his year were.

"Stop putting yourself down," Remus told him.  He was smiling broadly; like Sirius, he seemed as pleased as punch about the news.  "You'd better check your kit when you've had your breakfast.  Make a list of anything you need."

"I need new gauntlets," Harry said, "and I'll take my broom in for servicing."

He unfolded his equipment list and noticed that instead of the usual auto-quill list, his had been written out by hand.  The flowing black script was instantly recognisable as Professor Snape's.  The list of potions ingredients and books had doubled, but they'd been warned of that at the end of term.  There were two new Transfiguration texts, three for Defence Against The Dark Arts, one for Divination (plus instructions to purchase one of a set of runes, a scrying mirror or a dowsing crystal – Harry could almost feel the contempt oozing out of Snape's pen), and one each for Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.  Charms was off the list now, of course, but instead there was a note at the bottom of the sheet of parchment.

 _Upon your return and directly after the welcome feast you are to come to my office where your timetable for the year will be explained to you.  Professor Flitwick requires that with your guardian's permission you should bring with you to school any texts about the subject of Animation that you may have discovered at Black Manor and any projects in Animation that you are working on.  It is the Headmaster's wish that you should bring with you copies of the_ Guide To The Code of Duellists _and_ Exploring The Pathways Of The Mind _by Verity Pickersgill_.  _I shall also have instructions for you with regard to the composition of the Slytherin Quidditch Team._

 _Do not be late._

Lovely.  A meeting with Snape straight after the feast, guaranteed to cause indigestion and, if it included an Occlumency lesson (which Harry was ready to bet it would), a nice beefy migraine to start the year off on the right footing.

He turned the sheet of parchment over and noted the usual uniform requirements which _had_ been written with an auto-quill, but just as he was about to hand it over to Remus he noticed an addition.

 _Pupils in Years 4 to 7 are required to provide themselves with one set of formal, winter-weight evening robes, correctly and discreetly labelled and carried in an appropriate receptacle.  Female pupils are reminded of the dress code which expressly forbids hemlines of more than two inches above the knee and excessively décolleté bodices._

Harry groaned as he handed the sheet over to his godfather.

Remus was amused.  "I wonder if it's for a Yule Ball or a New Year Ball?" he said.  "I'll send a note to Mo MacDuff, since we'll have to take you to Fancyriggs again for evening gear.  You'll be expected to wear your family colours."

"You could do with a bigger selection of cravats and a couple more waistcoats anyway," Sirius said matter-of-factly.  "And if you go to The Rose House again before you go back to school, ask one of the elves to find James's collection of cufflinks and cravat-pins for you.  Do you want to take your grandfather's pocket watch with you?"

Harry shook his head.  "I'll owl you for it a couple of days beforehand.  I'm not keeping it in the dorm with me."

"Fair enough."

Ron arrived while Harry was in his room, sorting out robes and Quidditch equipment.  He looked apprehensive.

"Did you get your letter today?" he demanded.

"Yeah."  Harry shook out an everyday robe - black with Slytherin green lining - and held it up to himself.  The sleeves were just above his wrists and the bottom hem, which should have been ankle-length, was nearly two inches short.  "I think I've grown a bit," he said, pleased.

"Formal evening robes!" Ron protested.  "Mum's doing her nut - she can't get new for me _and_ Ginny ..."  He suddenly shut up and turned a dull red.

Harry looked at him, unsure how to respond to this without upsetting his friend.  He knew enough about the Weasleys (from Ron's comments over the past few months) to guess that if new robes were going to be bought, it would be Ginny who got them, not Ron. 

"Couldn't you borrow some from one of your brothers?" he suggested.

"Only Percy's tall enough and I'm bigger around the shoulders than him," Ron mumbled.  "Never mind.  What books do you have to get?"

Harry let him change the subject, but stowed the problem at the back of his mind for later.  "Probably the same as you, only I don't have Charms this year," he replied.  "Has Trelawney told you to get a bag of runes or something?"

"Bill's going to let me have a set of his," Ron said, recovering himself.  "By the way, Hermione's Head Girl.  She owled me about it just after breakfast."

"Big shock," Harry said, unmoved by a piece of news that he'd mostly been expecting.  "Did she say who the Head Boy is?"

"Yeah."  Ron pulled a piece of parchment out of his jeans pocket.  "It's Goldstein, so that's not too bad, I suppose.  And she said to tell you that she got a prefect list and the new prefects for Slytherin Seventh Year are Zabini and Greengrass.  Could be worse, right?"

Harry nodded, resigned.  "At least it's Blaise - I thought Snape would pick Nott for sure.  Greengrass could be a problem though, she's one of Parkinson's hangers-on."

"Better than Parkinson herself," Ron said philosophically, "and Hermione'll slap her down if she gets uppity."

"True."  Harry tossed another robe on the bed.  "By the way, I'm Quidditch Captain this year."

"What?"  Ron's face split in a huge grin.  "Are you serious?  That's brilliant."

Harry finally gave in and grinned back.  "Yeah!  I'll tell you, though – I really wasn't expecting Snape to choose me.  And I've got to see him about it after the welcome feast, so I don't know how much he's going to interfere."

"Has he ever even played Quidditch?" Ron asked, looking sceptical.

"Snivellus?  Not likely!"  Sirius was standing in the doorway, looking amused.  "He could hardly keep a broom up in the air when we were at school.  Lousy balance and a twitchy grip.  There was only one person worse and that was - "  He stopped abruptly.

"Who?" Harry asked curiously.

"Well - your mum, actually," Sirius admitted.  "She was broom-shy right up until our final year although to be fair, old Prenderghast - the Quidditch Coach - didn't have much patience with Muggleborns."

"She couldn't fly?"  Harry was incredulous.

"She learned eventually - your dad taught her.  But she was never very confident on a broom."  Sirius changed the subject.  "Is Hermione coming today, Ron, do you know?  I know Pettifer's planning to get started on the other room."

"She'll be over in a while," Ron replied.  He looked at Harry.  "What are we going to do?"

"Dunno.  There's stack of stuff we _could_ do - work a bit more on the room in the basement, have a poke around in the study for the other door to the hidden rooms - "

"Or help me and Remus start clearing out a couple of the spare bedrooms," Sirius suggested pointedly.

Harry sighed.  "Great - more dust."

 

xXx

 

The brief snatch of conversation with Ron about robes came back to Harry as the two of them helped strip furnishings from the old relatives' quarters for cleaning, and swept and dusted.  There were still items of clothing in wardrobes, drawers and chests and a germ of an idea began to grow in Harry's mind as they folded up the bizarre assortment of garments and put them into an old trunk for passing to a charity or second-hand shop.

"No one would seriously want to wear any of these things, would they?" he asked Sirius at one point.  They'd just struck a vein of drawers that were full of what Remus euphemistically called _gentlemen's long underwear_.  "Other people's underwear – that's nasty."

"Depends on how poor you are," Sirius said with a shrug.  "They're clean – and most of them are silk/cotton blends.  Not exactly cheap.  These are all in nearly new condition, since none of _my_ relatives would dream of wearing worn-out underwear."

"And robes will always sell, regardless of the style," Remus chipped in.  "Some older folk prefer the styles of their youth, fashions do tend to recycle themselves … and sometimes you can make alterations to a robe that's a bit of an odd style but otherwise perfectly serviceable."  He smiled.  "I got quite good at making alterations to some of the things I picked up in second-hand shops a few years ago, but there are professionals who'll do it for you too."

"You want to consider looking through your dad's waistcoats," Sirius suggested to Harry.  "The cut of those changes very little, and he was always buying new ones – some of them will only have been worn once."

"Hm."  That hadn't been exactly what Harry was thinking off, but the information was useful.  And it would be interesting to see what his father had considered the height of formal fashion where waistcoats were concerned.  It might even save him from having to buy new waistcoats when Sirius took him to buy his formal robes.

They took a tea-break at eleven and went to find out how Hermione and Mr. Pettifer were getting on with their cataloguing.  Both seemed to be thoroughly in their element, but when the three teenagers got a quiet moment together to talk Hermione reluctantly admitted that although she liked and respected Pettifer very much, he frustrated her too. 

"He's – well, I suppose it's because he's elderly and traditional," she said carefully, watching Harry with some trepidation, "but he's _patronising._   Professor Lupin already showed me the other room."  For a moment her face screwed up with a mixed of amusement and distaste.  "It's tacky and more than a bit perverted, but I'm not shocked by it!  Not very shocked, anyway.  Really, it's quite interesting.  But Mr. Pettifer seems to think that I shouldn't see it at all, and nothing I can say will change his mind.  So it doesn't look like I'll be able to help him.  He won't even let me see his notes, he just says that it's not proper for me to see such things and I wouldn't understand them if I did.  It's not like I don't know what dildoes and – and cock-rings are!" she added, annoyed, although Harry noticed that she couldn't quite say the words without turning pink.

"How do you know about stuff like that anyway?" Ron demanded.

"Oh honestly, Ron," she said impatiently.  "I'm a witch, not a nun!  We're not nearly as stupid or sheltered as you think we are.  Or Mr. Pettifer seems to think we are, for that matter."

"Did you tell him that?" Harry asked, amused and interested.

"No, of course I didn't!  He's old enough to be my grandfather."

"Actually, he's probably a lot older than that."

"How old is he, anyway?" Ron asked.

"He told me that he was a bit younger than my grandfather, but seeing as Grandpapa was something like a hundred and ten when he died, that's not saying much," Harry replied.

"That's amazing," Hermione remarked, "except that it's _not_ actually amazing, which is amazing in itself really.  I mean, that wizards can live for so long."

"Some of them do, anyway," Harry said, thinking of his parents.

"Well – yes, I suppose so …."

Fortunately, Hermione was saved by the appearance of Hedwig who flapped up to Harry and offered him a small, cream-coloured envelope.

"Thanks, Hedwig," he said, surprised, and he offered her some raisins that were left from the chunk of fruitcake he'd had with his tea.  While she pecked these up daintily, he noted the familiar bold, black writing on the front of the envelope that formed his name ("Henry Potter the Younger") and tore it open.  As he'd already guessed it was from Blaise Zabini, writing for confirmation of the arrangements for his visit.

"What do you reckon he wants?" Ron asked with a frown as they went in search of Sirius.

"No idea, but he must think it's important," Harry replied, with a small shrug.  "Especially since he's using my proper name."

"It's just good manners, I expect," Hermione offered.  "Doesn't it seem odd to be called that, though?  I had no idea that you were called Henry before I heard Mr. Pettifer calling you that – even in _Great Wizarding Events Of The Twentieth Century_ you're referred to as Harry Potter."

"I'm getting used to it," he replied, although he still wasn't entirely sure of that. 

Sirius seemed resigned rather than happy about Blaise's visit.  "There's an old Floo point in the Morning Room," he said, "and I spoke to the Ministry about re-opening it a couple of weeks ago.  We'll have to close the Floo in the kitchen for the duration and modify the wards, though, and he's not to leave the Morning Room, Harry.  I'll speak to Kingsley about security later."

"Is that really necessary?" Harry asked, although he was curious rather than annoyed.

"Yes," Sirius replied flatly.  "The Zabinis have never been known to have links with Voldemort or the Death Eaters, but that doesn't mean they couldn't.  Someone will stay in the room with you until he arrives, the Floo will be locked shut while he's here, and they'll stay with you while he leaves.  As soon as he's gone the Floo point will be disconnected and the wards modified again."

"Maybe it's a good thing I didn't have a birthday party after all."

Sirius gave him a half-smile.  "I won't deny that there are benefits to you being antisocial."

 

xXx

 

Blaise visited two days later, on the Friday. 

By this time the Morning Room was effectively a shell and although considerable repair works had been done on it to render it clean and sound, it was bare down to the plaster on the walls and the new boards on the floor.  Sirius and Harry brought in two upright armchairs and a small table from the library, but that was the extent of the furnishings.

The preparations made Harry jumpier than he might otherwise have been.  Sirius would stay with him in the room until Blaise arrived and the Floo was closed.  He would leave them alone then, but he was only going just outside the door and there would be a number of other people at various points outside the room in case by some chance trouble did occur.  The Floo had even been set up with a trap on it to detect polyjuice, Animagi and Metamorphmagi – a device that had taken Tonks, Kingsley and Sirius the better part of the previous day to construct.  It all seemed like an extraordinary fuss just so that one teenager could visit another at home, and caused a few private complaints from the Order members involved, but it was the view of more senior individuals that the effort was justified.  Locking Harry away from his friends would benefit no one, Dumbledore said, and that was the end of the matter.

At ten o'clock precisely the alarm on the Floo chimed and Sirius stood up with a sigh.  He checked the various charms on the fireplace, then unlocked the Floo; green flames roared up and a spinning figure appeared in the grate.  Harry stood to one side, well back as he'd been instructed, and waited until Blaise came to a halt and stepped cautiously out of the fireplace.  Despite the formality of his correspondence with Harry, he was dressed relatively casually in an everyday robe.  His manners were perfect though, as he bowed formally to Sirius.

"Mr. Black," he said.  "Thank you for allowing me to visit your home."

"Not at all," Sirius said a little dryly, returning the bow.  "Excuse me – "  He stepped around the teenager to the fireplace and waved his wand over it.  "The Floo is locked and only I can unlock it.  I hope I don't need to explain why."

"Not at all, Sir.  The need for security is understood."

"Good.  I'll leave the two of you for now, then.  Harry …."

Harry nodded acknowledgement and Sirius quickly departed, closing the door behind him.  When he was gone, the two youths turned back to each other.  Blaise inclined his head to Harry.

"Potter."

"Zabini."  Feeling like a character from a Victorian novel, Harry gestured to one of the chairs.  "Have a seat.  Cup of tea?"

"Thank you."

They sat and Harry tapped the table with his wand.  A tea service appeared, the china teapot emitting little curls of steam from its spout.  He waved his wand again and it began to pour itself into the two cups.

"So," he said, feeling even more like a Victorian heroine but not knowing how else to get the conversation going, "had a good summer?"

"It's a summer," Blaise said dryly.  "Why, have you?"

"I don't think I could put it better than that," Harry muttered.  "Fine.  What do you want?"

"Congratulations on attaining your majority," the other boy said.

Harry gave him his best look of polite incredulity and had the satisfaction of seeing Blaise relax enough to give him a tiny grin and shrug.

"Should I have sent a card?  But we don't usually, do we?  Besides, my father went to your coming of age party as our family's representative."

"You didn't need to send a card," Harry said, shrugging slightly himself.  "It's not like we're friends, after all."

There was an appreciative spark in the other boy's dark eyes at this.  "No, but we could be," he suggested.  "It could be useful."

Harry gave him a thoughtful look but didn't respond.

After a moment, Blaise continued, "My grandfather has asked me to offer his apologies for not attending your party in my father's place.  He would have if he could, but he's in poor health these days.  He doesn't want you to think he was slighting you, especially as he was a close associate of _your_ grandfather."

"I've been told that he was," Harry said.  "Please tell him that no offence was taken and I hope his health has improved."

"He'll appreciate that."

There was another pause.  Blaise's eyes moved from Harry's face to flick over the room. 

"So this is Black Manor.  What happened to it?"

"It got locked up for ten years with bad preservation charms.  I'm supposed to be helping renovate it," Harry said.  He began to feel a tickle of annoyance.  "Look, can we stop dancing around the subject?  You wanted to see me.  Why?"

Blaise gave him a measuring look for a moment.  "Who leads Slytherin this year?" he asked bluntly. 

Harry was surprised by the question.  He hadn't had much idea of what Blaise wanted before now, and this definitely wouldn't have been one of the topics on his list if he had.

"There are people who could," he said.  Frankly he didn't care much.  "There's a Bellecoeur in third year."  He paused.  "What about you?"

"What about you?" Blaise countered.

"I've never wanted it and I don't want it now.  Half of Slytherin wouldn't accept me if I tried, since I'm a half-blood - "

"They would now," the other boy interrupted.  "You came of age at the end of July, and people like the Bellecoeur matriarch and Quintus Criggle were there.  You _have_ to be accepted, you're the confirmed _paterfamilias_ of a First Family.  So will you lead us this year?"

He said it as though there was nothing to stop Harry stretching his hand out and seizing power in Slytherin if he wanted to.  Harry didn't see it quite that way, and in any case he truly didn't want it.  Too much trouble, too much angst and aggravation.

"No," he said, more sharply this time.  "But if you want to take it, I'll back you."

Another long pause.

"I'd have taken you up on that before we left school," Blaise told Harry finally.  His eyes were unreadable.  "But it's different now.  Did you know Dumbledore's going to take Malfoy back?"

Harry stared, shocked.  "Don't be stupid!  He's got a place at Durmstrang – "

"He had a place.  Conditionally.  He was supposed to learn to speak Russian by September, and he hasn't managed it.  It's too late for him to transfer to Beauxbatons, so his father's negotiating with the Board of Governors to take him back.  My father thinks Dumbledore will have no choice, because he won't be able to push the expulsion issue after nearly six months and he won't deliberately create a situation where Malfoy can't sit his NEWTs at all."

Much as Harry might have liked to deny it, that sounded just like Dumbledore.  Always giving the outsider another chance.

"If he comes back, you know what'll happen," Blaise said.  "He still has supporters.  If no one else stands up and challenges him, he'll be as bad as he ever was.  He'll say that even Dumbledore couldn't stop his father doing what he liked.  And I couldn't challenge him.  If he wasn't there I might have a chance but against Malfoy, even with you behind me – it's not going to happen.  If _you_ challenged him though…."

"People have mostly sided against me in the past," Harry reminded him, although he knew it was a weak argument.  People hadn't bothered to side with Harry because Harry had made it clear he didn't want them to.

"Think about it," Blaise pressed.  "If he comes back, Dumbledore will still want to make it clear that he did something wrong, right?  He didn't let Snape make Malfoy a prefect and he probably won't let him back on the Quidditch team either.  So what does that leave?"

"Snape made you the prefect," Harry pointed out. 

"And he made you the Quidditch Captain."

Being Quidditch Captain was heavy backing for being the 'king' in Slytherin.  It wasn't everything, but with the right support….  Harry shook his head.  He wasn't considering this, dammit.  He _wasn't_.

Blaise hissed angrily.  "Don't be an idiot, Potter!  You must be the only person who thinks you can't do this – even Malfoy knew it before he got chucked out.  Why do you think he targeted you all the time?  He was scared!"

Harry was less sure of that although he knew, generally speaking, that Draco was a lazy coward who relied on other people to do his dirty work for him.

"It's not that I couldn't do it," he said after a moment.  "It's that I don't _want_ to do it, Zabini.  It'll be a pain in the arse from start to finish, even without Malfoy involved."

"Yeah, well there are a lot of things in life that aren't about whether you _want_ to do them or not," Blaise retorted pointedly.  "They just have to be done – don't they?  Maybe this is one of them.  Or maybe you _want_ to sleep in our dorm with Malfoy in charge again and his friends lying in wait for you to go to sleep."

Damn.  Much as Harry hated to admit it, Blaise had a point.  If they'd thought Malfoy was bad before, that would be nothing compared to when he returned

"Look, at least think about it," Blaise urged him.  "I don't want things to go back to the way they were before he left, because don't kid yourself they won't be worse.  And they will be, especially – "  He hesitated, then forged onwards.  "Especially since You Know Who's on the move and the Malfoys are probably as thick as shit with him again."

Harry raised a brow at him.  "Blaise, you know the Ministry says there's no Death Eater problem in England."

"If my grandfather says he believes the Dark Lord is back, then I believe it," Blaise retorted.  "If he says it's a bad thing, then it's a bad thing."  He picked up his cup of tea and drank it down in several quick gulps, as though saying the words had dried his throat.

Harry looked at him thoughtfully.  "If I said that Lord Voldemort has attacked me and tried to kill me three times in as many years, would you believe me?"

Blaise met Harry's eyes.  "Yes, I would."

"Does your father believe that?"

"I don't know.  Probably.  But it was my grandfather who told me You Know Who is back."  Blaise put his cup back on the tea tray.  "Potter, on Wednesday I'll be going to Diagon Alley with my mother to buy my school things, and while I'm there I'm planning to meet some people from our House – from Slytherin – at one of the cafés there.  If you can come too it could be a good time to find out how many supporters you have among the important people in our House."

Harry hesitated.  He wasn't sure which day Sirius had been planning for their own expedition to Diagon Alley ("planning" being the operative word after the fiasco of their visit at Easter) and in any case, while he might cautiously trust Blaise in some things, he would have to be a lunatic to give guarantees of a time and meeting place to a person whose family's position in the war was unknown.

"I'll think about it and let you know," he said finally. 

"Of course."  Blaise stood up and straightened his robe.  "Thank you for the tea.  I won't outstay my welcome; I've said everything I wanted to say."

"Okay."  Harry stood up too.  "Maybe I'll see you on Wednesday."

"I hope so."

Harry went to the door to summon Sirius to release the Floo.

 

xXx

 

Harry found that he needed to go for a walk around the gardens while the others were resetting the Floo point and wards.  The news about Malfoy returning to school had upset him more than he realised at the time, and Blaise had given him a lot to think about aside from that.

For the first time in several weeks he was seriously reconsidering his decision to return to school himself.  He didn't want to have to deal with Draco Malfoy again, with all the posturing and backbiting and sheer malice that seemed to follow the other youth around like the smell of dry rot.  He didn't want to have to deal with the extra pressure Malfoy would put on him now that he was captain of the Quidditch team.  And he especially didn't want to have to wrestle with the other youth for the kind of control over the loyalties of the entire House that would allow them all to get on with their education in peace – which, in spite of what he had said to Blaise, he knew he would be obliged to do if he went back to school.  He was no longer prepared to keep his head down and stay in the background, and that would inevitably bring him into conflict with Malfoy, no matter who ruled Slytherin.

After a while he realised that he'd done a complete circuit of the garden and slowly went back indoors. 

"...be lucky if you don't get a very shirty answer," Sirius was saying to Kingsley Shacklebolt in an exasperated tone.  "Let me handle it, will you?  - There you are, Harry.  Everything all right?"

Considering that it was really quite a large room, it was surprising how few people could make the kitchen feel crowded.  Harry paused inside the doorway, taking in Sirius, Remus, Shacklebolt, Bill Weasley and Tonks all standing around the kitchen table.

"I'm okay," he said warily, although he wasn't sure how true that was.  "What's up?"

Shacklebolt stepped around Sirius to stand in front of Harry.  "Potter, your conversation with Blaise Zabini - what was it about?"

 _"Kingsley,"_ Sirius said, annoyed, and Harry saw Tonks shake her head ruefully behind the other Auror's back.  He liked her a little better for that.

Harry tilted his head to one side, regarding Shacklebolt for a moment.  He didn't particularly like the man; he'd been prepared to try and like him at the beginning of the summer, but the continual creeping sense of distrust he got from him - the same sense he got from some of the older Ravenclaws at school - infuriated Harry.  This was the kind of person he would always be on probation with, no matter what he did.  He'd overcome a similar situation with Sirius, but there was no common ground with Shacklebolt whatsoever and clearly the feeling was mutual or the man wouldn't continually do things like this that belied his reputation as one of the best Aurors in the MLE.

"Are you investigating Blaise?" he asked.

"Should I be?"

"You tell me, you're the Auror," Harry retorted.

"Potter, if Zabini gave you any indication - "

"You know, if you're not investigating him formally you have no right to question me about a private conversation," Harry interrupted.

"And if you were a little less self-obsessed you would realise that I wouldn't be asking at all if I didn't consider it important," Shacklebolt returned sharply.  "We didn't go through this ridiculous exercise with the wards and security just so that you could talk Quidditch with the boy!  The Zabinis are an ambiguous family whose loyalties have never been clear where Voldemort is concerned.  And it might astonish you to learn that we aren't simply engaged in trying to save _your_ life, Potter, but - "

"It's Snape under polyjuice, right?" Harry said, looking at Sirius.  "He needs a bit more work on the language, though."

"Dammit, Potter - !"

"That's enough!" Remus said sharply, stepping between them.  "Kingsley, I'm sure you have business elsewhere to be getting on with.  If there was anything in his conversation with young Zabini that Harry feels is relevant, I'm sure he'll tell us and we'll make sure you're apprised of it."

"I would imagine there's a very deep gulf between what he considers to be relevant and what _I_ would consider relevant," Shacklebolt said angrily.

"That's a risk we all have to take, isn't it?"  The look Remus gave the Auror was less than friendly.  "Don't owl us, we'll owl you."

When Shacklebolt was gone, Sirius let out a hissing breath.  "He's getting worse."

"He's worried," Tonks said a little defensively.

"Oh, and we're not?" Sirius shot back.  "Jumping all over Harry about his friends is _not_ the way this war will be won."

"Dad says the Zabinis have always been fence-sitters," Bill remarked, speaking for the first time.

"That's perfectly true," Sirius said sharply, "but since the same thing could equally be said about Harry's family, it's a little ill-judged to start over-analysing their behaviour.  Antonio Zabini was a career diplomat, it was his job to walk a fine line and offend nobody."

"The problem isn't with Antonio, it's with Guiseppe," Tonks pointed out.

"Even so, I doubt the boy would be affected," Sirius replied.  "I'd be surprised if Guiseppe has much influence over him, under the circumstances."

Harry found this interesting in light of the way Blaise had talked about his father and grandfather. 

"What circumstances?" he asked.

Sirius looked at him as though suddenly remembering he was there.  "How much do you know about Blaise's family?" he asked.

Harry shrugged.  "Not much.  Talking about family was more Malfoy and Nott's kind of thing."

"Blaise is the family's heir, but he's not Guiseppe's son," his godfather told him.  "Guiseppe had a younger brother who died when Blaise was a little boy.  Guiseppe married his sister-in-law and effectively adopted Blaise - they don't have any other children."

That _was_ interesting.  "But what did you mean about the circumstances?"

Sirius glanced at Remus for a moment, then looked at Bill and Tonks.  "You have to understand that the Order has made it it's business to find out information like this about certain families," he said to Harry finally.  "The Zabinis _are_ a little ambiguous, which makes it important to know as much about them as possible.  And Guiseppe Zabini is ...."

"He has issues which make him more likely than other members of his family to be vulnerable to persuasion by certain people," Remus finished for his partner, when Sirius seemed uncertain how to put it.  "Frustrated men - and women - can be unreliable.  Given his lack of other children, there's a rumour in certain quarters that Guiseppe might be infertile, which is a very difficult thing, especially for a pureblood wizard.  And it's more than a rumour that Antonio Zabini has taken control of Blaise's upbringing.  That's strongly suggestive of internal problems in the family."

Harry absorbed all this information and tucked it away for later consideration.  The motivations of people weren't something he was always particularly good at understanding, but he _did_ understand things like bitterness and frustration, and given recent developments in his relationship with Blaise he thought the situation with Guiseppe and Antonio Zabini would be worth thinking about.

"So is there anything you think we ought to know?" Tonks asked brightly. 

She was watching him rather closely, so Harry gave her his bland face.

"No, I don't think so."

"Fair enough," Remus said, before she could take it further.  "How about a cup of tea before we get started on the bedrooms again?  Harry, there's been no sign of Ron or Hermione yet - are they coming today?"

"Maybe later," Harry said.  "Granger's been nagging him to finish off his essays, so he said he'd probably work on them this morning."

 

xXx

 

It wasn't until nearly lunchtime that Harry decided to talk to Sirius about Blaise's visit.  Even then he was hesitant about what he said.

"Did you know that Malfoy might be going back to Hogwarts?" he asked as they sorted through a tremendous chest full of cloaks, boots and shoes.  Remus was in the next room sorting through another drawer of underwear and socks.

"It was a possibility at the beginning of the month," Sirius admitted.  "Nothing was decided then, though, so I thought it would probably be better not to say anything to you until it was certain."

"It's okay," Harry said.  "I don't blame you."

"There's not a lot I can do about it even now," Sirius replied apologetically.  "It's a matter for the Board of Governors to decide, and I'm not a member."

"Malfoy's father is though."

"Yes, that's a problem for Dumbledore.  I intend to bend his ear about it though.  Draco shouldn't be allowed back without some sanctions and I'm not happy about him being in the same dormitory as you."  He paused.  "I'm _not_ going to grill you about it, but I hope all the trouble we went to today wasn't simply so the Zabini kid could tell you that and wish you a belated happy birthday."

Harry had been struggling with the decision whether to say anything or not about his conversation with Blaise.  It wasn't his way to talk about school problems with anyone, let alone Sirius or Remus, but that was mostly habit and it had started to dawn on Harry lately that sometimes talking about things was comforting, if not necessarily helpful.  And this was something he didn't think he could really discuss with Ron as such; Ron was a Gryffindor after all.  Of course, Sirius and Remus had been Gryffindors as well, which made it a bit of a dilemma.

"I don't suppose you know much about what Slytherin's like," he said finally, rather cautiously.

"I know a bit more than you think," Sirius replied, shaking out a voluminous caped cloak in purple hound's-tooth check.  "Most of my family were Slytherins, so I was given the full indoctrination before I was put on the train to school for the first time."

"You know there's always someone who's sort of in charge of the others?"

Sirius looked as though he was trying not to grimace.  "The so-called 'king' - yes, I know."

"Malfoy led the house from about third year," Harry said, "and when he left, Higgs - the Quidditch captain - tried to take his place.  But now Higgs is gone and Malfoy might be coming back."

"That could be a problem," Sirius acknowledged levelly.

"Blaise wants me to do it," Harry said.

Sirius finished folding the cloak and put it to one side with a pile of others.  Then he surprised Harry by closing the lid of the trunk and sitting down on it.  He gestured for Harry to join him.

He didn't speak at once, but rubbed his eyes with his fingertips (something he did sometimes when he was stressed or worried) and seemed to think for a moment or two.  Harry watched him warily, unsure if Sirius was going to have a relapse and start being difficult.

"I should think Zabini is just as qualified for the role as you," Sirius said finally, looking at him sideways.  "Why isn't he putting himself forward instead?"

"He doesn't think he can raise enough support against Malfoy," Harry said, still wary.

"And you can?"

"I don't know.  He wants me to meet him and some others in Diagon Alley next week to talk about it."

"Do you _want_ to do it?"

"No," Harry said at once.  "I've never wanted it.  But if Malfoy comes back ...."

"I was afraid of this happening," Sirius said after a space.  "Although if I'm honest, I was more afraid of you coming up with the idea on your own.  Harry, you do realise this isn't just something that happens behind closed doors at school, don't you?  The families who traditionally have links with Slytherin will know about it.  Word will get out."

"So people are going to think I'm some kind of power-crazed nut-job," Harry said.  He shrugged.  "They think that already, don't they?"

"Yes, but you'll be handing them more evidence.  Besides, it's not just fools like them that we have to worry about."

"What do you mean?"

"Harry, think!  Some of these people will be Death Eaters.  Think of the message it sends to Voldemort!"

"Maybe I should write him a note instead," Harry suggested.  " _You can step aside now, I'm ready to claim my destiny as master of the world._   Something like that."

"Not funny," Sirius told him, annoyed.  "Harry - "

"If I do it, I can keep Malfoy under control," Harry said flatly.  "If I don't do it, I'll spend an hour every evening checking my bed for hexes and I'll have to sleep with one eye open."

"Do you seriously think you can control him?" Sirius said incredulously.

Harry thought that Sirius would be a lot more worried if he knew just how easily ideas for controlling Malfoy were coming into his head.  There was a lot he could do if Malfoy's usual cronies weren't backing him up.  But perhaps this was why Sirius had been a Gryffindor and not a Slytherin.

"You may think it's a joke, but sending Voldemort a message that you're ready and willing to become a leader of others – especially the sons and daughters of some of his Death Eaters – is as good as sending him a challenge," Sirius told him with enough heat to make Harry bristle.  "Do you honestly think that's a good idea?"

"How is it a _bad_ idea, exactly?" Harry demanded.  "How can it be a bad thing to send him a message that I'm not a kid hiding behind other people anymore?  What's the point of all this – " he gestured vaguely, indicating the summer's activities, "if I'm just going to sit here or at Hogwarts for the rest of my life while he goes around killing everyone else off, one by one?  Or, worse – recruiting them?  Isn't it about time everyone stopped bloody protecting me and let me get on with trying to kill the old freak?"

"And you know how you're going to do that, do you?" Sirius retorted.  "You have the mystical secret everyone else would give their bloody lives for, to get rid of him for once and all?"

"Does _anyone?_ " Harry shot back, his voice beginning to rise.  "Does Dumbledore?  Do you?  At least I have one big fucking advantage – according to the great prophetess Trelawney, I was _born_ to die killing him!"

"Harry – " 

Too late, Sirius realised that he'd been lured into quarrelling with his godson, when a little more care with words might have got the _real_ issue out into the open for once.  He made a grab for the teenager's arm but Harry was already out of reach and heading for the door.  As chance would have it, Ron and Hermione had just arrived and they watched, wide-eyed, as he stormed past them without a word of acknowledgement.

"Harry, dammit!  Don't just flounce off!" 

"Fuck off, Sirius!"

Ron looked at his rapidly retreating friend, looked at Sirius, then sighed.  He patted Hermione on the shoulder and went after Harry, although rather more slowly.

"I'm constantly amazed at how your mouth seems to say these things without any input at all from your brain," Remus said, exasperated, walking through from the next room.

"Thanks.  I feel much better for hearing that," Sirius replied grumpily.

"Well honestly, Sirius!  It's like a flashback to _last_ summer – "

"Do you think I wanted to have a row with him?  He seems to think it's a good idea setting himself up as some kind of rival for Voldemort's throne!"

"Of course he doesn't!  He's just frustrated and fed up with being mewed up and guarded all the time.  Wouldn't you be?"  Remus sighed.  "If you could have hung onto your temper for a minute or two longer, he might have stunned both of us by actually asking for your advice.  Oh well."

There was a tiny, deprecating cough.  Hermione was still standing in the doorway, looking awkward.

"Professor – should I just continue where we left off yesterday?"

"I'm sorry, Hermione – yes, of course.  I'll be with you in a minute.  Pop your head into the other room, would you, and ask Mr. Pettifer if he fancies a spot of lunch?  He's been working in there since just after breakfast, with nothing but a couple of cups of tea to keep him going.  Although I'm not even sure he drank them, he seemed rather engrossed the last time I looked in."  Remus turned back to Sirius.  "Look, I'll be back in a minute, Padfoot.  If you go into the next room, take a look at that odd crystal decanter that was on the bedside table, would you?  Be careful if you open it – I can smell something very odd and it wouldn't surprise me if something has taken up residence in there."

Sirius sat back on the trunk and watched them leave, and tried not to kick himself too hard.

 

xXx

 

Ron found Harry in his room at the top of the tower.  He was stretched out on his bed with one foot dangling over the edge, staring up at the canopy.  Ron walked around to the other side of the bed and climbed onto it, lying down on his stomach.

"Hullo," he said.

"Hullo," Harry said rather listlessly.

"What's going on?"

"Sirius is being a complete arse."

"Yeah, I noticed you were a bit pissed off with him."  Ron wondered how to proceed.  "What's he said to you?"

"Stuff."

So Harry didn't want to talk straight away.  Fair enough.  Ron noted absently that his jeans – which tended to be a bit of a loose fit anyway – had ridden down a bit while his t-shirt had ridden up, exposing a patch of pale skin just above his hipbone.  It was tempting to reach out and touch it.

"I know what you're thinking."  Harry sounded amused.

Ron grinned at him.  "Not like that's difficult," he said.  "I'm _always_ thinking about that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

Harry grinned too, then it seemed to turn more contemplative.  "This hasn't been a bad summer _really_ , has it?"

"It's been pretty brilliant from where I am," Ron told him.

"I've been thinking about going back to school," Harry continued.

"You are still going back, aren't you?"

"I thought so, but - "  Harry bit his lip and looked at Ron.  "Look, Blaise told me something this morning and I don't …."  He stopped.

"What?" Ron prompted.

"Malfoy's probably going back to Hogwarts this term."

The news hit Ron like a punch in the chest.  Malfoy?  Going back to school, after nearly being expelled for hexing him into falling down a flight of stairs?

"I – I thought he was supposed to be going to Durmstrang?" he managed after a moment.

"They won't take him, Blaise said.  He didn't manage to learn Russian well enough to be admitted."

"Did he even try?" Ron demanded bitterly.  "Christ, how can Dumbledore let this happen?  The little shit nearly did me in!  And all he gets is about four months off school?  Some punishment!"

"Hey."  Harry reached out and grabbed one of Ron's hands, which were fisting angrily in the counterpane without him even realising.  "I know!  I don't like it either.  I have to share a dorm with him, remember?"

"And what if he tries to kill you this time?" Ron demanded.  "His father's a Death Eater!  _He_ could be a Death Eater by now!"

"He'd have to be a lunatic to try anything.  He'd be the first person they suspected if anything happened to me.  But he won't anyway, Ron, you know that.  Voldemort wants to kill me himself, even Malfoy won't dare interfere with that."  Harry squeezed the hand under his slightly, his green eyes urgent.  "And he's not going to hurt you again either.  That's what I was thinking.  If I don't go back to school, I can't ….  I mean, I'm going back to school.  Staying here would be giving him free rein to do what he likes."

"Was that what Sirius was being going on about?" Ron asked after a moment.  He thought he knew what Harry had stopped himself saying and it warmed him.  "You going back to school with Malfoy there?"

"Sort of.  But don't worry about that.  I'll talk to him later."  Harry shifted onto his side and reached out with his spare hand to cup the nape of Ron's neck, urging him closer.  "There's one good thing about fighting with Sirius – everyone mostly leaves me alone afterwards.  Come here …."

 

xXx

 

Harry decided that he wouldn't say anything to Ron about the power vacuum in Slytherin until he'd been to Diagon Alley and met with the other Slytherins.  The problem was that he had to persuade Sirius to let him do it, and no one had yet mentioned how buying all Harry's school gear was going to be handled this year, so he had no idea if he would be allowed anywhere near Diagon Alley.  Since Easter, the place had mostly been out of bounds to the Boy Who Lived.

And while the upside of fighting with Sirius might be enough privacy for an hour's illicit recreation, the downside was having to deal with him afterwards – a sticky business for someone as defensive and disinclined towards apologies as Harry.  It was another indication of how far they had come in six months, though.  Less than a year ago apologising to Sirius wouldn't even have occurred to him. 

When he and Ron emerged the others were out on the patio eating lunch, all except Sirius who was making lemonade in the kitchen.  Ron gave Harry an encouraging look and a push towards the kitchen door, then hastily retreated to the patio to let the pair of them get on with it.

"I'm not going to ask where _you've_ been," Hermione told him looking disapproving as he sank into a chair beside her.

"Good, because I wasn't planning on telling," Ron retorted distractedly, peering back through the sitting room window.

"Have a salmon sandwich," Remus suggested.  "If Harry and Sirius get into another fight I'll make any necessary interventions, Ron."

"They seem to have a volatile relationship," Pettifer observed.

"It's improving all the time," Remus assured him.

Harry wasn't so sure of that.  He stood in the kitchen doorway, hands stuffed rather defensively into his pockets, and watched as Sirius juiced lemons, blended sugar and water and crushed ice cubes.

"Er ...." he said finally, trying to break the silence.

"Tonks and Kingsley can't get clearance to unlock my old room or Regulus's for another month at least," Sirius said briskly, taking the wind out of Harry's sails.  "I don't suppose there's much to find in either, though, and there are plenty of other things to be done, like turning out the old nursery."

"Oh," Harry said, not sure how he was expected to respond to this.

"That's unless you have something more important to do," Sirius continued.

"Such as?"

"I don't know," Sirius said coolly, wiping his hands on a tea-towel and turning to face him.  "World domination, maybe?"

This was unusually confrontational, even for Sirius, and there was no hint of humour in his face or voice as he said it.  Harry's hackles came up almost at once, but his godfather was speaking again before he could decide how to reply.

"Every once in a while you might consider the possibility that I'd like to keep you alive.  And I know it's a difficult concept for you to grasp, but you might try the idea that I could be fond of you for size while you're at it."

"Voldemort - " Harry began.

" _Fuck_ Voldemort!" Sirius snapped, flinging the tea-towel across the room.  "I don't give a piss in a high wind for Voldemort!  Bugger whether he lives or dies, or rules the world, or ends up at the bottom of a burning pit!  I have only you and Remus in all of this world, Harry, and the greater good of wizard Britain wouldn't be a fair exchange to me if I lost either of you.  What do I have to say or do to make you understand that?"

"That's easy for you to say!  It's not _you_ Trelawney gave the Black Spot to!" Harry flung back.

"She said no such thing.  The prophecy says neither of you can live while the other survives - "

"Do you really think I can survive him in a face to face fight?" Harry demanded.

"Do _you?_ " Sirius shot back.

"No." 

The word shot out of Harry's mouth before he could censor it and he was shocked by the look on Sirius's face.

"I don't – I don't want him to," Harry stammered before his mouth could lock up again, "but I don't think I can stop him and I really hate all the waiting around and knowing that he's getting to other people while I'm sitting here doing nothing - "

He was silenced by Sirius rounding the corner of the kitchen table and grabbing him.  He fought it for a moment - why did Sirius insist on _hugging_ him all the time? - but in spite of the humiliation there was comfort in being held tightly by the person who was as near to a father as Harry would ever get in his life.

"I'm not a kid," he mumbled into Sirius's dusty shirt by way of protest.

"That's not the point."

"I wish people wouldn't keepmauling me like a stuffed rabbit," Harry grumbled, leaning in a bit all the same.  Why was everyone so much taller than him anyway?  His nose always ended up rammed into Sirius's collarbone.  Sirius was a bony sort of bloke anyway.

"Not enough people have mauled you in your life.  Not that I don't know how that feels."  Sirius gave a snuffly sort of laugh.  "The first person to hug me properly was your dad and I nearly slugged him for it.  Up till then I reckon the only person to try it was Regulus when we were kids, and he soon got that slapped out of him by our mother."

To Harry's relief – for he really didn't want to share reminiscences of Dudley pinching and punching him as a child – Sirius released him, but only to grab his face with both hands instead.

"Listen to me," he told Harry.  "You are _not_ going to get killed by that monster.  Do you hear me?  I won't have it.  You didn't come this far to be beaten by someone like him."

"I don't want to," Harry found himself saying.  Something about Sirius's expression demanded an honest response.  "But I – mostly I don't – "  He swallowed and tried again.  "Mostly I think I wouldn't mind if I could take him with me.  But – "  He stopped again.

"But what?"

"I _hate_ not being in control of it."  And that was it, the truth; one of his most desperate fears laid bare.  "I hate feeling helpless about him.  About anything really."

A curious expression came into Sirius's eyes at this and for a moment the long aristocratic fingers cupping Harry's head seemed to tense slightly.  But he only nodded and said "Go on".

"It's not that I _want_ to lead Slytherin you know," Harry muttered.  This was becoming more difficult; he had to look away from his godfather's dark grey eyes to get the words out.  "But if I do it – then I'm not sitting, waiting for Malfoy to do something.  I can move _first_.  And – "  He chewed his lip savagely.  This was the thing he'd realised only an hour or so before and it was deeply personal, but he knew Sirius better now and thought that if anything could make his godfather understand it would be this.  He forced himself to look Sirius in the eyes again.  "If I do it, maybe I can protect Ron a bit.  Not just against Malfoy, but against people like Nott and Parkinson, and the others who think Voldemort's the best thing since broomsticks."

Sirius let out a long breath, then released Harry and pulled him back into a loose hug. 

"The trouble with that plan, Harry, is that to pull it off you need to be a natural leader.  And you're _not_ – you've been beating my ears since I came out of Azkaban with how much of a loner you are.  If you were James it might be different, but he wasn't a typical Potter and strange as it might seem to you, you _are_ a typical Potter, through and through.  Potters have been kingmakers before, but never kings."

"But to do that you have to know a bit about kingship, don't you?" Harry said after a moment's thought.  "You can't … be the power behind the throne without understanding how the throne works in the first place."

Over the top of his head, unseen, Sirius closed his eyes for a moment.  "Yes, I suppose that's true," he admitted reluctantly.  "But Harry, this isn't a game - not for you, not this time.  If you slip up …."

"It can't be worse than waiting for him to hex the stairs again."

"He can still do that, don't you see?  It's not enough to convince the other Slytherins that you're top dog.  You have to convince _him_.  That's my point."

"That's not the hard part," Harry said matter-of-factly, pulling back from Sirius.  "Malfoy's a coward -  controlling him's just a matter of frightening him badly enough.  The hard part is finding ways to _keep_ him frightened without Snape finding out and being shitty about it."

"Harry," Sirius said, "whatever you do, don't lower yourself to his level.  Please?  Winning a war isn't everything.  Sometimes it's just as important _how_ you win it.  And you're better than he is, by a wide margin.  If Voldemort can't lure you into becoming someone you'd hate, don't let Draco Malfoy do it instead."

Harry thought about this.  "This is what Mr. Pettifer goes on about, when he talks about the proper behaviour for a gentleman wizard, right?"

"Only partly.  Harry, it's about who you are.  You're a decent person, and you know the way Malfoy and some of his cronies behave isn't right, just as you did with your cousin.  Don't behave like them just to get back at them.  Don't do things that turn you into that kind of person, because you have to live with yourself afterwards."

Harry gave him an odd look.  "I wouldn't anyway," he said.  "The things they do are pointless."  This seemed perfectly obvious to him.  There was no point in creating trouble for no reason, after all. 

Sirius appeared to take what reassurance he could from that statement and backed down. 

"All right ….  Give me a hand with this lemonade, will you?  We've been in here long enough – there are salmon sandwiches out there with our names on them."

 

xXx

 

Sometimes Remus wished that he could accept a quiet, pleasant night for what it was.  He supposed that it was typical of his brain that it wouldn't switch off on demand, though.  Tonight, for all that their shared bed was sinfully comfortable, there was a pleasantly cool breeze wafting through the window, and Sirius was giving him a foot massage to die for, his mind was instead occupied with the past.  And for that he blamed Sirius's lack of a haircut.

Not that long hair was unusual for a wizard; when they were young he'd had hair long enough to tie back himself.  Hogwarts rules decreed that male pupils in years one to six had to keep their hair no longer than the lobes of their ears, but seventh years were allowed to grow it longer provided it was properly tied back.  Long hair was traditional among wizards, particularly the higher ranking purebloods, as were beards and moustaches as one grew older.  Remus and Sirius hadn't thought twice about it, although James – possibly in an effort to gain some control over his genetically untidy mop – had never grown his longer than collar-length and Peter had emulated his example.  Which was odd, now that Remus came to think of it, for Henry Potter had worn his hair long and in a tail, as had most of his contemporaries.  Not that doing so had controlled it much better than James's crop had.

Sirius had always been a wizard born to wear long hair and dramatic clothes though.  Fresh out of school in the late 1970s, he'd indulged the image to the hilt and cut a very dashing figure, especially for an Auror.  Remus had done the same to a much lesser extent, until the autumn of 1981 when the world had come crashing down around his ears.  For several significant periods of time after that he'd lived among Muggles; it had been easier, but that had meant toning down his appearance and cutting his hair short to fit in.  As for Sirius, following his escape from Azkaban and his trial and release, he'd had to cut off the accumulated years of hair wholesale just to make himself clean and respectable again.

Out of that dark period had emerged two very different men.  And between then and now Remus had stuck with his shorter style – which he had become used to and which was easier to care for, he had to admit – and Sirius had kept his hair at a manageable shoulder-length.

It was only this evening, with Sirius paying a great deal of loving attention to his partner while not actually saying anything, that Remus had the space and peace to look at him and realise that actually his hair was getting quite long again.  It was past shoulder-length already and judging by the way he had to keep shaking it off his face, it would shortly need to be tied back.  Remus was reluctant to make an issue of it, but _not_ to mention it would be silly, really, after three years.

"Are you planning to grow a beard?" he asked experimentally.  Unlike Harry, Sirius was usually best approached obliquely.

Sirius looked up at him for a moment, but his fingers never slowed in their gentle kneading of Remus's foot.  (He had always been good at giving foot massages, something Lily Potter had remarked upon with envy more than once.)

"I don't think so," he said.  "I haven't forgotten how badly the last one itched."  That would be the matted horror he'd been desperate to get rid of after Azkaban.  "Why, do you think I should?"

"Not especially, but it's your face."

Sirius grinned a little at this.  "I'm not the one who'll get whisker-burn."

"I noticed your hair, that's all, and wondered if you were going for the full set."

"It'll fit better with the formal robes when I have to attend the Wizengamot," Sirius explained.

"You'll be the belle of the ball," Remus assured him solemnly. 

Sirius tweaked his big toe and pushed the foot off his lap.  "Give me the other one, then."

Remus shifted over a little and put his other foot into Sirius's waiting hands.  "Am I allowed to know why I'm getting the full service this evening?"

"I'm thinking."

"I can tell."

A pause. 

"I had a chat with Harry about the whole "king of Slytherin" thing," Sirius said eventually.

"And?"

Another pause.  Sirius made a bit of a performance about tipping a little sandalwood oil into his hands and rubbing them together to warm it.  The muscles of his jaw were bunching; not a good sign.

"Padfoot?"

"Do you think Dumbledore realises that Harry believes he's going to die?"

So there it was; the punch in the gut that his subconscious had been waiting for.  A nice peaceful evening was rarely a nice peaceful evening, as he had learned long ago.

"I have no idea what Dumbledore believes where Harry is concerned," Remus said.  "I'd be astonished if anyone could claim to know that."

"Well, while we're all busting our guts teaching him to stay alive, what Harry's actually learning is how to take He Who Refuses To Die with him.  Or that's how he sees it, anyway."  Sirius made an impatient sound as he pressed the pads of his thumbs into Remus's heel.  "Sorry, not what you were asking.  He means to go ahead with this kingship business."

Remus looked up at the canopy of the bed for a moment.

"Well, I can't say I didn't expect that, but it doesn't make me feel very happy.  Did you point out to him that the downside of being in charge is all the people watching and waiting for him to screw up?"

"I don't think that's something Harry of all people needs pointing out to him," Sirius said.  "He says he doesn't want to do it."

"Fudge says that about being Minister," Remus retorted.  "Every man - or woman - who ever runs for office of some kind swears that they don't want power and they're only doing it for the collective good.  It's the first great lie of the dictator, Sirius!"

"This _is_ Harry we're talking about," Sirius said levelly.

"I know, and that's what frightens me.  His notions of what constitutes the greater good are a bit odd to start with."

"I don't think Harry's interested in the greater good at all.  He has a pretty low opinion of humanity already - "

"And that doesn't worry you?"

Sirius stopped massaging Remus's foot.  "What do you think he's going to do?" he demanded.

"I don't know!" Remus said restlessly.  "I just worry ....  This is partly the way Voldemort started out - as a loner with a grudge - "

"You're not seriously saying to me that you think _Harry_ could turn into another Voldemort!"

"We all could, Sirius!" Remus snapped.  "All it takes is the right trigger, the right set of circumstances.  Look at Peter!  He sat down to Sunday lunch with James and Lily only days before he betrayed them.  What made him do it, do you know?  Because I don't.  Harry doesn't have to become like Voldemort to be dangerous.  He could do everything he does in good faith and still be wrong.  And I'm not saying this because I want to, or because I'm afraid of him like all the other hysterics.  I'm saying it because I love him and I'm frightened _for_ him."

"Well, that makes two of us," Sirius replied frankly, and he began to knead his partner's arch again.  "But he has his reasons for wanting to do this and ... I understand them.  It's hard to argue against it when he stands there and tells me he's afraid and needs to do something to make himself feel less afraid."

"Fear can make people do terrible things too, Sirius," Remus told him softly.

Sirius's hands dropped to his lap again.

"I know that, Moony, but what am I supposed to do?  He's _seventeen_.  All either of us can do is advise him and pray that he listens."  His face twisted.  "He told me hates being stuck in a situation that's out of his control.  James said almost exactly the same thing to me before he and Peter cast the Fidelius Charm - that the worst possible part of the whole situation was having no control over it and having to rely on other people to keep Lily and Harry safe.  A week later he and Lily were dead, and it twists my guts to have Harry looking at me and saying the same things now, and knowing there isn't a damn thing I can do."

"And you blame yourself because if you'd done the Fidelius Charm back then, Harry might not be in this situation now," Remus said, putting a finger directly on the heart of the issue.

"What if, what if, what if," Sirius muttered.  "It's the what ifs that get to us all.  They're like a hex."

"You could have done it, Sirius," Remus reminded him, "but you could have been killed for withholding their location, and they still might have died.  You did what you did in good faith, and you did it for the best of reasons, because you weren't entirely sure of _me_ and you knew that compromised you as Secret Keeper.  You couldn't know that Peter was the traitor.  None of us knew."

Sirius looked away.  "I got there too late that day.  An hour earlier – a _half_ -hour – "

"You were with me.  Do you think I haven't blamed myself for that?"

"That wasn't your fault," Sirius said quickly, turning back to him.

"It _was_ my fault," Remus retorted.  "If I'd taken you into my confidence earlier, told you what the Order had me doing, we wouldn't have become estranged in the first place.  It shouldn't have taken that last fight to do it, and if I hadn't waited till then we might not have ended in a situation that had me believing you were the traitor after all.  We both made mistakes.  And here we are."

"With Harry preparing himself to die."

Remus sighed and looked away, out of the window.  "It'll fall out the way it's meant to, you know.  We must do everything we can, of course, but in the end it's out of our hands."

"I find it pretty hard to accept that," Sirius said heavily. 

"It's the only way I know to get through the difficult times," Remus replied.  "I had to keep telling myself that when you were in Azkaban, and before that when James and Lily died and I thought Peter was dead too.  James … you know, I have this memory of him, after his father died.  He was sitting in the study at The Rose House, surrounded by piles of parchment, and he looked so out of place there because it had always been Henry's place.  And I remember him saying that there was so much to do, not just the funeral and probate and so on, but just managing the estate on his own in future.  He said he didn't know how he would do it all, or where he was supposed to find the time to be a husband and father _and_ all do these other things that were expected of him."

"What did you say?" Sirius asked curiously.

Remus looked at him and smiled sadly.  "I didn't say anything.  The portrait on the wall there – his great-grandfather Raphael, I think – told him that there was always enough time, so long as he _made_ time.  That each of us is given the right tools and just enough time to do our allotted tasks in life, and no more.  If some of those tasks should go unfinished by us because of a lack of time, then they were never our tasks to complete in the first place."  He paused, then added, "I've thought about that a lot since.  I don't know how much comfort James took from it – probably not much, knowing him – but it made some sense to me in the light of what happened afterwards."

"And you're saying I should bear it in mind?"  Sirius sighed.  "I don't know.  You could twist that to be a get-out clause for doing nothing, Moony, and I _can't_ do nothing.  And I'm not about to pass a bit of wisdom like that on to Harry when he's already embracing his inner fatalist."

"No – I have to agree that now would be a bad time to tell him something like that, especially as he doesn't seem to be a great believer in fate and the grand design anyway.  I just thought _you_ could think about it a bit.  You're too prone to placing the blame for these things on yourself, Padfoot.  Try to remember that you were never the only player in this game.  Things couldn't have fallen out the way they did if it hadn't been for the actions of others as well."

"I suppose so," Sirius said, and he left it at that.


	13. Chapter 13

Harry spent the next couple of days helping to strip the old nursery of toys and furniture.  It must have been a fairly grim sort of childhood for Sirius and Regulus, in Harry's opinion, for the atmosphere created by the rigid furniture and dark colours made even his little cupboard at the Dursleys' house seem more inviting.  The toys were all old-fashioned, heavy and in many cases rather frightening.  Not even Remus offered an objection when Sirius said he would burn the lot.

"Forget about this being a nursery in the future," he said, once the final box of wooden alphabet blocks was set on the bonfire.  "No child ever gets banished to that room again."

In between dealing with the nursery and the last of the guest rooms, Harry and Ron searched the study to try and find the hidden entrance to the rooms upstairs.  It continued to elude them, despite near-fingertip searches of the floor and walls, so it was greatly to their annoyance that Hermione finally discovered the door at the other end on the Sunday afternoon.  Harry was just on the point of getting Ron to help him move the heavy study desk when the chandelier vanished and a wooden staircase slid noiselessly out of the ceiling.  Their only consolation was that despite repeated openings and closings of the door, no one could quite work out how to open it from the study end.

"It's probably something to do with the chandelier," Sirius said finally.  "Well, it'll give Remus and me something to occupy ourselves with during the long, empty days after you've gone back to school."

"That, and fixing the front entrance," Harry said mock-sympathetically.

On Monday morning a note arrived from Morag MacDuff to say that she would be delighted to escort Harry to Fancyriggs towards the end of the week.

"We'd better see about making the trip to Diagon Alley earlier in the week then," Sirius said.

"Am I allowed to meet Blaise and the others on Wednesday?" Harry asked.  He kept his tone mild, but inwardly he was braced for a fight.

"Let me check with Dumbledore first," Sirius replied, refusing to be drawn.

"Okay.  In that case, am I allowed to take Ron and Granger over to my house sometime?"

Sirius looked at Remus, who shrugged. 

"I'm willing to go with them," he said, "and I'm sure Mr. Pettifer would be up for the trip if you're not."

"I think Harry should have a complete health check before I risk my neck with Maffy again," Sirius said wryly, but he didn't say if he would go or not.

"This afternoon?" Harry pressed them.

"We may as well make it today," Remus agreed.

"Thank you."

Armed with this promise, Harry went back to the study to try his luck and his locking charms on the chandelier once more.  Hermione arrived just before ten; she paused in the study doorway long enough to tell Harry that Ron would not arrive until after lunch because he was still working on his Transfiguration essay, then disappeared off to the hidden rooms to continue her cataloguing.  Losing interest in the stubbornly hidden door, Harry wandered out into the central courtyard and found Remus feeding the caged Rat-Eating Funnel Spiders from a grisly box full of dead moths.

"Do I want to know how you caught those?" Harry asked, watching the spiders pounce on the offerings with uneasy fascination.

"There's no mystery to it," Remus replied.  "You smear the inside of the box quite thickly with something like honey or treacle, then suspend it on a charm overnight somewhere with a small light above it.  They fly towards the light, think "mm, sugar!" and get stuck on the inside of the box."

"Why a charm?"

"Because if you stood it on something or hung it from a branch, the box would be full of ants in half an hour.  These ladies here - " Remus nodded at the spiders "like something a bit meatier, but I haven't seen a single rodent at this end of the house so far, and that's probably their doing.  So moths it is."

"When are you getting rid of them?"

"When we take you to Diagon Alley, I'll drop them off with a dealer I know in Knockturn Alley.  I imagine most of them will end up in potions, although occasionally people keep them as pets."

"Bit risky," Harry noted, staring at one specimen which had quite visible fangs.

"They can be defanged very easily.  Or even just de-venomed."  Remus gave him a quick smile.  "You stun them and cauterise the sacs at the base of the fangs.  Once you've done that, it mostly a matter of handling them regularly to make them docile."

Harry stared at the teacup-sized spiders in front of him.  A very interesting idea had just popped into his head.

 

xXx

 

"I'll be interested to see just what kind of conditions you keep your house-elves in."

"Hermione, will you give it a rest?"

"I don't care if they sleep on silk sheets, Ron, slavery is still slavery!"

"My dear, if you feel so strongly, perhaps you would prefer to remain behind?"

Mr. Pettifer's gently disapproving tone rendered the group momentarily silent, and Remus had a severe struggle with himself not to grin.  The relationship between Hermione and Pettifer (if it could be called that) wasn't exactly prospering and it had nothing to do with her being a Muggleborn, or not directly at any rate.  It was primarily a culture clash; some Muggleborn witches and wizards slotted into their adopted society without the slightest struggle, while others, like Hermione, entered it with a mixed bag of preconceptions and ideals and, instead of fitting in, tried to re-work magical society to fit _them._   She was doomed to failure, of course, for the wizarding world hadn't become what it was overnight and consequently couldn't be changed at the flick of a wand.  But like all teenagers, she was incapable of seeing anything but that it was _wrong_ and must be put right at once.

And the problem wouldn't have been highlighted so dramatically if the representative of magical Britain's old order she was dealing with wasn't the courtly and aristocratic Petuarius Pettifer.  Hermione probably saw him as being part of the problem, which was a fair distance from the truth but she lacked the background knowledge of wizard politics over the past hundred years and consequently wouldn't know that.

"Hermione," Remus said, before a bad atmosphere could develop, "I can certainly understand your argument where some house-elves are concerned, but you need to realise that not all wizards treat them badly and that not all elves are like Dobby or Kreacher.  Harry has good reason for saying that the elves at The Rose House are contented and well cared for.  And before you try to shout me down, I should warn you that any attempt to quarrel with Harry on his own property would be a lapse in manners and taken very badly by the elves themselves – particularly his nurse, who's elderly and very protective of him."

There was an awkward pause.  Then Sirius, who had stayed aloof from the conversation until now, suggested tactfully, "You could always consider this a field trip – an informative visit to discover how a different group of house-elves live."

Hermione reluctantly accepted this suggestion.

"He has a nurse?" Harry heard her whispering to Ron as they gathered themselves to Apparate.

"It's a First Families thing," Ron whispered back.  "She was his dad's nurse too."

Hermione sniffed.  "Ridiculous, archaic customs," she muttered.

Remus managed not to roll his eyes. 

"Don't dismiss them just because they're alien to you," he advised her.  "You can't change a culture like ours in a day, as I'm sure Mr. Pettifer will tell you.  You've been trying for decades, haven't you, sir?"

"Indeed," Pettifer replied mildly.  He was showing incredible restraint under provocation, but that was _noblesse oblige_ Remus supposed.

"It's wrong to use intelligent creatures as slave labour," she said stubbornly.

"It's wrong to use _people_ as slave labour, but Muggles still do it," Harry retorted, annoyed.

"I think you need to survive an encounter with Maffy, Harry's nurse, first," Sirius advised Hermione.  He was amused by her persistence.  "I think she'll change your mind about the whole concept of elves as slaves."

"Sure you won't come with us?" Remus asked him.

"No thanks.  I have an appointment with my solicitors, and besides - I like my head and my balls where they are."

Hermione bridled, and Remus hurried to head off yet another salvo.  "If you're coming, Hermione, take my arm please.  Ron, do you remember where we're going well enough to Apparate yourself?"

"I think so."

"Good.  Let's go, then."

 

xXx

 

The elves were getting used to Harry's visits; Dilly appeared without being summoned and beamingly ushered them all into the small family parlour, before dashing off to arrange for tea and presumably to tell the other elves that Harry had returned.  Hermione sniffed and muttered darkly about Dilly's pristine tea-towel.

Then Drooby arrived, very imposing with his side whiskers.  His air of being in charge gave the girl a definite pause which only his deferential manner towards Harry tempered.  He was gracious to Harry's guests, but his obvious attachment to the boy was entirely another matter.  The difference in manner was oddly down-putting.

At this point, and in spite of everything, Remus began to enjoy the trip in a way that only his three former school-friends would have recognised.  It was impossible for him not to find Hermione's bemused indignation funny, for the elves were oblivious to her.

Harry of course didn't find it funny at all, but that wasn't terribly surprising.  Fortunately, Hermione's busy mind was kept occupied all through tea with Mr. Pettifer's unexpectedly tactful monologue on the history of the house and the Potter family, and afterwards Harry arranged for Dilly to show him, Ron and Hermione around while Mr. Pettifer took Remus away to view something in the library. 

The tour seemed to silence Hermione for a while, as she took in the restrained elegance and comfort of The Rose House.

"I don't know what I was expecting," she admitted at one point, "but I don't think this was it.  It's beautiful, but it's very warm and welcoming too.  I was expecting something more formal after seeing Black Manor, I suppose."

"It's brilliant," Ron said.  "It's not one of those scary houses where you daren't sit on the furniture.  People could really _live_ here."

Harry was conscious that the nearest portraits were listening to their conversation with undisguised interest - and so was Dilly, although she made an effort to look as though she wasn't. 

"It's growing on me," he said cautiously.  He had other things on his mind, though.  "Dilly, do you think Bolly or Pucksey would mind looking through some of my family's old clothes for me?  Sirius said I should ask them to find my father's cufflinks and waistcoats."

This, of course, was no trouble at all.  In short order the three of them were ushered into the bedchamber that had been James and Lily Potter's before they went into hiding.  Harry hadn't been in here before and he was struck by the difference between this suite and the much smaller one his father had occupied before his marriage.  The colours were all different, mainly blues and greens, and the furniture had a more 'adult' feel to it.  The bedroom was dominated by an enormous four-poster bed made of oak, although the effect was softened by the hand-knitted bedspread covering it.

Bolly and Pucksey were only too happy to bring out James Potter's waistcoats for Harry's inspection.  It was a startling collection that gave the teenagers a good laugh.  Harry's father had apparently liked psychedelic colours and stripes quite a lot, although that was by no means the full extent of it.  There were a number of more soberly hued items in Potter family colours (presumably for very formal occasions), but a lot were 'fun' designs – Hermione pointed out one elegant creation in deep blue velvet with silver cobwebs embroidered across it and a spider scuttling around them.  Another had a score of little clocks of various sizes on it, all of them ticking silently and keeping perfect time.

Bolly cajoled Harry into trying a couple on and they were found to be a pretty fair fit –

"Which is spooky, really, that you can even wear your dad's clothes," Ron remarked.

"The young Master is three inches shorter than Master James," Pucksey said very apologetically, prompting Bolly to add hastily, "But the young Master has time to grow yet!"

Harry eventually selected four to take away with him, and when the elves discovered that he would be needing formal evening robes for an unspecified ball at Hogwarts over Christmas they produced several winter-weight cloaks in bottle green with gold linings and the family crest on them, urging him to try them for fit.  They were wonderfully luxurious, made of the finest wool lined in silk and identical to each other, differing only in sizes.  Presumably this was because Harry's father had gone through several while he was still growing.

"Formal cloaks is never changing in style, young Master," Bolly explained. 

One was found to be a good fit and this was carefully parcelled up with the waistcoats.  Finally a large polished wooden chest was brought out, full of cufflinks.  These were almost as much fun as the waistcoats had been, proving that James Potter had had a lively sense of humour as well as personal taste (and enough money not to care how much he spent on trinkets, apparently).  Pucksey was quick to show Harry a set of cufflinks in the shape of spiders and another of little watches that matched two of the waistcoats he was taking with him.  Hermione pointed out another pair that were shaped like little silver dragons with emerald eyes, and Ron found a pair that were shaped like shaggy dogs.

"No prizes for guessing where the idea for that design came from," Harry observed, amused.

The final pair he selected were shaped like kneazles, complete with twitching tails, flicking ears and tiny sapphire eyes.  The rest were carefully put back into storage again.

"Well, that's you partly sorted for the ball," Ron remarked, with just a touch of gloom. 

Harry nodded.  "Yeah, and that reminds me … Bolly?"

The elf dashed back to Harry expectantly.  "Young Master?"

"You remember when Ron and I were here before and stayed overnight?  And you found Ron a robe to borrow from clothes that had been left behind by guests?"

"Yes, young Master?"

"Are there a lot of clothes left here like that?  Clothes that aren't in family colours?"

"Many, young Master.  Bolly and Pucksey is storing many trunks of robes left behind by the old Masters' friends.  Is young Master wishing to see them?"

"Not exactly."  Harry gestured to Ron.  "Are there any formal robes that would fit Ron, that could be altered to a modern style?"

 

xXx

 

"That was a kind thing to do," Hermione told Harry later, when she got a brief moment apart with him before they all Apparated home.  "Sorting out those robes for Ron, I mean.  They'll be much better than anything his mum could afford for him."

"If I was really being kind I'd buy him completely new robes," Harry told her a little irritably, "but I knew he wouldn't let me do that - you saw how hard it was to persuade him to take even second-hand robes!  This is the best compromise I can come up with.  And he still has to get them altered, but I think I can come up with a way around that too."

She shook her head, smiling a little.  "Deviousness, thy name is Harry Potter."

"Better hope it is," he said, thinking of what he was starting to refer to privately as "the Slytherin problem".

"Thank you for letting me see your house," Hermione said, breaking in on his contemplation.

He gave her an odd look.  "It's just a house, Granger, not a sacred grove or something."

"I think your family wards would have something different to say about that," she said wryly.  "And the house-elves which, by the way, I still think is completely wrong!"

"Yeah, and I notice you waited until you were well out of Maffy's hearing before you said it!" he shot back, torn between amusement and annoyance.  Much of the afternoon had been spent with Hermione having private raptures over the library while Harry showed Ron the tree-house, but leaving without visiting the kitchens to see Wibsey and Keppy, the gardens to visit Looby and the near-mandatory visit to the nursery so that Maffy could fuss over him, was unthinkable.

"It's perfectly obvious that she adores you and I wouldn't hurt her feelings," Hermione retorted loftily.

"Yeah, yeah!"

"Are you two arguing again?" Ron demanded, joining them.  "I dunno how you keep it up, honest!"

"Do you want me to answer that?" Harry asked, mischief chasing away his annoyance, and he grinned when Ron huffed and turned pink around his ears.

 

xXx

 

When Remus and Harry returned to Black Manor they found Sirius sitting at the table on the patio, reading an immensely long roll of parchment.  Another fat scroll and a stack of bound papers were at his elbow and he was sipping a mug of tea pensively.

"Is there any tea left?" Remus asked, pausing by his shoulder.  His eyes flicked quickly over the parchment and away again.

"There's a potfull on the stove," Sirius replied.

"Thanks.  Want one, Harry?"

"Please."  Harry watched Remus retreat, then slid into the seat next to Sirius.  He wondered what was going on.  "What are you reading?" he asked, half expecting to be rebuffed.

But Sirius twitched the parchment towards him.  "Take a look if you like.  It's a draft of a possible contract between Miss Pettifer and me."

Harry got the unpleasant little jolt in his stomach that always seemed to happen when her name was mentioned.  "You're going to go ahead with it then?"

"I don't think I have a lot of other options."

"You could wait a bit.  You have two years, don't you?"

"Yes, but the heir has to be physically present at the end of that time and the usual process takes nine months!  Besides, don't forget that a rival heir is brewing inside Cousin Narcissa as we speak."  Sirius made a face.  "Depending on the political situation, I could be put in a very difficult position if there isn't even a hint of a child of my own by the time that baby's born."

Harry blinked.  "What do you mean?"

"I mean, Harry, that Lucius Malfoy sits on the Wizengamot and Voldemort is still at large.  If Voldemort is _more_ powerful in a few months' time, Lucius will inevitably have more supporters on the Wizengamot because people will start to panic and change sides.  I take my seat for the first time in two weeks so I don't have any political clout yet.  If he wants to push me into a tight corner, he can probably do it."

Thanks to Mr. Pettifer's lesson in Civic Duty, Harry thought he understood the general drift of this.  Pettifer had even made use of the Pensieve to take him on a 'visit' to a Wizengamot session, which Harry now wished he'd paid more attention to.  He'd been so distracted by his first sight of his grandfather in the memory that he hadn't been listening as closely as he should, though.

"What happens to my seat while I can't take it?" he asked suddenly.

"As your grandfather and father's designated representative, Pettifer holds it as your proxy," Sirius replied.  "He's deemed to speak with the support of the Potter family, but he can't actually cast votes on your behalf because the true _paterfamilias_ has to be physically present.  So in a vote you would be registered as an abstainer.  The same goes for my family until I take my seat, and any of the families who are now defunct."

"Defunct?"

"Died out.  The ranks of the First Families have really dwindled over the last century, and Sylvester Bones put the practice of advancing lesser pureblood families to First Rank on hold nearly fifty years ago.  That's mostly because to be advanced in rank you have to be able to prove your bloodline is absolutely pure going back at least eight generations, plus at least four of your direct ancestors have to have held significant office of some kind in the Ministry.  There just weren't the candidates for it."

"That's a load of crap," Harry said, staring.  "What about me?  I'm not a pureblood!"

Sirius smiled.  "I know, and that's what's so brilliant.  When you take your seat, Harry, you'll be a living argument for every reformer on the Wizengamot – people like Dumbledore and Pettifer and Amelia Bones.  Dumbledore has been trying to get legislation like that repealed for decades, along with changing the criteria for membership of the Wizengamot, but he's been blocked at every turn by idiots like Quintus Criggle and Lucius Malfoy who want to maintain the exclusive status quo.  But with someone on the Wizengamot who is technically a half-blood, and who was born and acknowledged into the First Rank, their arguments pretty much crumble."

"Of course, I have to actually live long enough to take my seat for that to be of any use," Harry commented.

"We've had that conversation already, haven't we?"

"Just saying."  Harry leaned forward to scan the parchment, mostly so that he didn't have to look at his godfather.  "Why is this thing so _long?_   You want a baby, she's agreed to have it for you.  End of story."

"No legal document in the world is ever that simple."  Sirius pulled it back again and circled a finger over it vaguely.  "The bit about her agreeing to have a baby for me is the simple bit.  Where it gets complicated is the whole issue of the child's status and rights, and you'd have a legal agreement this long for _any_ child born into a First Family.  Pettifer can probably show you yours.  But the issue comes from us not being married.  This document sets down the child's rights of inheritance, not just in relation to the current situation, but taking into account a whole batch of other considerations.  The primary concern is what happens if another potential heir is born, and that would include any child of Narcissa's, Andromeda's, Bellatrix's and even Snape's, although in the case of Snape and Bellatrix any child they have now would primarily be considered his and Rodolphus Lestrange's heirs respectively.  It would also include any other children of mine, but especially if something happened to Remus and I married again."

"Would any baby you have with Miss Pettifer remain the heir if you had kids with someone else?" Harry asked, interested.

"Well, that's the point of this document, you see?  She has a right to know that _her_ son, who she's going through this performance for in the first place, won't be as good as disinherited if I have any other children."  Sirius rolled up the top half of the parchment and unrolled a bit more of the bottom half.  "Then there's a section about our respective rights over the child.  The whole point of this is that the child is effectively mine, and if Miss Pettifer decides to get married later on there's the issue of what rights she retains over him – if any – and precluding her husband or other children making any claims on the Black estate through the blood relationship to my son.  That doesn't mean she loses all rights as his mother, though, and this establishes that.

"And _then,_ " he continued, briskly rolling this scroll up and unrolling the other one, "there's my Will, which has to be completely revised now that I'm the confirmed _paterfamilias_ and probably going to produce an heir to the family name and estate.  You'll be pleased to know that you're still in here though."

"I reckon I've got a big enough pile of my own, without sponging off yours," Harry observed. 

"Absolutely, but there's still the small issue of my legal spouse being legally ineligible to inherit a single Knut from me," Sirius replied.  He looked at Harry intensely for a moment.  "I'm relying on you to take care of Remus if anything happens to me first."

Harry shifted uncomfortably.  "I told you before that I'd make sure Remus is all right.  Besides, you're not going to die or anything like that."

"There's as good a chance of me or Remus dying in this war as there is for you, Harry," Sirius said.  "Voldemort might not be _quite_ so desperate to get his hands on us, but he has plans for us if he does, believe me."

"I really need to just get on with it and kill him," Harry muttered.

"All in good time," his godfather said firmly.  "Besides, he's not the only problem."

Remus returned then, carrying two mugs.  He put one in front of Harry and took a seat opposite them. 

"Solemn faces," he remarked, sipping his tea.  "Cheer up, will you?  I'm sure Father Ignatius will let us know in good time if the apocalypse is nigh."

Sirius snorted and rolled up his Will.  "That'd be an item on the agenda for the next session of the Wizengamot, at least," he replied, indicating the bundle of papers beside him.

"Proper stabling for the four horsemen's mounts at the Ministry," Remus agreed gravely.  "Not a _priority_ item, I'm sure, but still fairly high on the agenda."

"Advance notices would need to be prepared for St. Mungo's that conquest, war and famine are expected.  And death, of course."

"Fudge'd never be able to handle an event of that scale.  It could make him look bad."

Harry shifted impatiently.  "Remus, can I ask a favour?"

Remus looked at him over the rim of his mug.  "Another one?"

"Eh?"  Harry frowned.

"Never mind.  Depends on the favour of course, but – go on."

"Well, you know you said there are places in Diagon Alley that alter robes?"

"Ye-es …."

"Well, we found some formal robes at my house that mostly fit Ron, but they need to be updated a bit.  When we go to Diagon Alley, could you show him a place that'll do it?" Harry asked. 

"Of course."

"And … if I give you the money, can you arrange for it to be paid for without him knowing that it's me paying for it?"

Sirius laughed and hastily turned it into a cough.  Remus rolled his eyes.

"I'm flattered by your confidence in my powers of deception, Harry!"

"It's not funny!" Harry protested.  "He's touchy about people paying for stuff for him."

"I expect he is, poor chap - charity is a loathsome thing when you're on the receiving end," Remus said with some emphasis.  He exchanged a long, thoughtful look with Sirius.  "Tell you what, why don't you let us deal with paying for the alterations?"  He saw Harry twitch.  "Harry, you've already given him the robes.  Having them altered for him is a pretty small gesture in return for the help he's been giving us for the past few weeks.  Besides, I know the seamstresses in Diagon Alley and I think I can nobble them to let me pay but tell him they're doing the work for free as a favour to me.  How's that?"

"Okay.  Thanks."

"Our pleasure," Sirius said gravely, but his eyes were dancing.  Then he sobered.  "Now, I spoke to Dumbledore this afternoon and we think we can arrange it so that you can meet young Zabini on Wednesday.  You need to owl him now to find out in advance when and where he'll be, but you mustn't tell him that you'll definitely be there - fudge it a bit, tell him that you're still trying to get permission or something.  If the venue is the least bit dodgy or off the beaten track you won't be going.  And if there are any changes in his plans - especially any last-minute changes - you won't be going either.  Understood?"  Harry nodded.  "Good.  You also won't be able to go on the same day as Ron - that's as much for his safety as your own," he added when it seemed like Harry would protest.  "Remus will arrange to meet with him another day if they're going to visit seamstresses together.  Now, about the meeting itself - expect to arrive late as a precaution.  If you're offered food or drink, or if you have to order any under the tea shop's rules, accept it but don't touch.  Make sure you get a seat that's facing the door and unobstructed if you can, but also be ready to Apparate out at a second's notice.  Avoid touching anyone and _don't shake hands_ whatever you do.  If they're purebloods they won't expect you to anyway.  And keep your wand at the ready the whole time."

Harry grimaced at all the rules.  "Moody came up with this plan, didn't he?"

"No, I did," Sirius replied, very dryly.  "Moody wouldn't let you go at all."

 

xXx

 

On the Wednesday, just as Diagon Alley was reaching its busiest part of the morning, a young man with messy dark hair and round spectacles Apparated into a corner just off the main drag of the street opposite Gringotts.  He was short and slender and wearing a dark blue robe over Muggle-style jeans and t-shirt, and after an uncertain glance or two up and down the Alley, he turned and walked briskly but unhurriedly up the street towards Quality Quidditch Supplies. 

He was just turning into the doorway when he nearly collided with someone walking the other way, a wizard who was dressed in the exaggerated and old-fashioned style common to elder purebloods of high rank, a hooded cloak and mask that concealed every detail of the face and body.  There was a tense pause; the gentleman wizard froze, irritation evident in every arrogant line of his body.  The boy flushed, apologised and stepped aside.  The wizard moved on and was presently swallowed up by the crowd.  The teenager stared after him pensively for a moment, then shrugged and continued on his way into the shop.

Meanwhile, the pureblood wizard made his way unhurriedly down the street.  His costume was rare enough of recent years that some ordinary shoppers reacted oddly to it, staring or deliberately avoiding him, but a number of older witches and wizards politely bowed and stepped out of his way.  He acknowledged these old-fashioned courtesies with a slight inclination of his head but did not stop or speak until he came to one of the smaller cafes at the bottom of the Alley, a place called The Potion Pot.  There, still without hesitating, he opened the door and went inside.

The Potion Pot was a bustling little place comprised of a network of low-ceilinged, smoky and dark rooms with small tables surrounded by many comfortable chairs.  The first room, which had many-paned windows looking out onto the Alley, was occupied by a handsome dark-skinned young man entertaining a number of well-behaved friends of a similar age.  The pureblooded wizard ignored them and kept walking, through the little passage that connected all the tea rooms, out to the back of the shop where the kitchens lay on one side and a door marked "Gents" lay on the other.  He walked through the latter door and closed it behind him, quietly sliding the bolt shut.

Then he ripped the mask off his face and threw off the cloak, bundling them up and thrusting them into the hands of the redheaded wizard waiting there. 

"Here – take them," Harry said almost angrily and George Weasley raised his brows, pursing his lips.

"Problem, Potter?"

"Yes," Harry hissed, running a hand over his hair which was even more ruffled than usual thanks to the hood.  "That was just – _creepy_.  If people weren't staring at me and avoiding me, they were kow-towing to me like I was some kind of Turkish sultan.  It's just _wrong_."

George was unimpressed.  "My heart bleeds for you.  People like me have been _kow-towing_ to stuck-up snots from the First Families for centuries, and getting hexed if we didn't."

Harry glared at him.  "Do I look like that makes me happy, Weasley?  Do I look like I want people bowing to me in the street?"

"No idea," George said indifferently.  "You look like every other Slytherin shit to me.  You piss and moan about how you're not special, but the whole bloody Order has to mobilise when you want to have tea with your mates – your _Slytherin pureblood_ mates.  I don't see how that makes you different from any other First Rank tosser."

Harry wasn't sure how he managed to hang onto his temper.  "They said you'd have my robe with you," he said coldly, when he could control his voice.

George's sneer was downright nasty.  "Yes, Master," he said in a mockingly servile tone, and he hauled a plain, bottle-green robe out of a bag at his feet and threw it at Harry.

Harry pulled it on, his fingers shaking.  There was a wash basin to his left with a small, speckled mirror above it.  He tugged at his hair for a moment or two, but it refused to lie flat and finally he gave up.  A quick twitch to his sleeves to straighten them –

And when he turned around his wand was levelled between George's eyes.  It gave him a small bit of satisfaction to see some of the colour leave the other man's face.

"Sloppy," he said curtly.  "Be glad I like your brother, Weasley.  And in case you've forgotten, I'm just half-blood scum.  _You're_ the pureblood here."

Slipping his wand back up his sleeve, he yanked the bolt back on the door and paused.

"Tell Tonks she looked nothing like me," he added over his shoulder, and he left.

 

xXx

 

The group of Slytherins had taken over the whole front room of the tea shop by the time Harry arrived.  Some of them jumped when he appeared at Blaise's shoulder without the doorbell tinkling to herald his arrival, but although there was a brief flash of surprise in Blaise's eyes he didn't question how it had happened.

"I wasn't sure you were coming after all," he said, standing up.

It was ridiculous, at least in Harry's opinion, but they bowed to each other.

"You know how it is," he said, and apparently Blaise did.

"Have a seat, won't you?  We were just talking about Malfoy and Parkinson."

The seat he indicated had its back to the window.  There was another on the opposite side of the table; Harry squeezed past several other chairs to get to it, aware that they were all looking at him, perplexed and assessing.  When he was seated Blaise flicked his wand at the fat teapot in the middle of the table and it poured a fresh cup.  The cup floated over to Harry, who accepted it with thanks but held it between his hands without attempting to drink.

The scene had a weird formality about it that reminded Harry of certain mystery novels, where an innocent protagonist would take tea with the murderer just as they realised what he or she really was.  All eyes were on him and he could feel some of the younger ones in particular sizing him up as though they'd never seen him properly before.  They were all purebloods, mostly of "second rank" families, although Harry recognised the two or three sons and daughters of First Families among them.

"I was explaining what will probably happen if Malfoy leads Slytherin again," Blaise continued.

"What'll make you any different, Potter?" one boy said abruptly.

Harry looked at him; he was Peter Lilywhite, currently a Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch Team.  He had straw-coloured hair, pale blue eyes and the milky complexion that usually went hand in hand with Scandinavian ancestry.  There was no warmth in his expression, but nor was there hostility – in Harry's experience, a typical Slytherin expression that meant _what's in it for me?_

"I haven't tried to kill anyone yet," he said mildly.

"Malfoy only tried to teach a Gryffindor bloodtraitor a lesson," one of the girls said unpleasantly.

"True."  Harry nearly picked his cup up to take a sip.  He stopped himself just in time and ran a fingertip around the rim instead.  "Although it was nothing to do with Weasley being a bloodtraitor - Malfoy nearly killed him because he thought I'd told him our Quidditch strategy.  Don't you find that reassuring?  Who knows what he'll do if one of us pisses him off sometime?"

"I should think that's mostly your problem," another girl said in an icy tone.  "You're the Mudblood in the closet, aren't you, Potter?"

Harry looked at her.  "And who are you again?"

"Lucilla Prenderghast - "

"Never heard of you," he replied in a studiedly indifferent tone.

" _My_ family are purebloods!" she said angrily.

"So what?  You can't prove it, can you?" he pointed out, mentally thanking Sirius for having let drop this useful piece of information two days before.  "If you could prove it and your family had done anything worthwhile, you could have advanced to First Rank before now."

"How dare you – "

"I dare because I _am_ First Rank," Harry cut in swiftly and coldly. " I'm _paterfamilias_ of my family.  Who the hell are you to ask me if I dare anything?"

She shot to her feet.  "You're nothing but some Mudblood slapper's piece of - "

"Sit down!" Harry snapped, and he put just enough 'push' behind the command to send her reeling back into her chair with a gasp.  Her cup and saucer went flying and a tinkling crash announced their destruction against the hardwood floor.

Then there was silence.

"Mention either of my parents again and you'll regret it," Harry told her grimly.  From the look on her face, she believed him.  He slipped his wand out of his sleeve and flicked it towards the floor at her feet; the pieces of broken crockery flew up onto the table, reassembling themselves in the process.  For a split second Harry considered making the spilt tea fly back into the cup as well, dust and all, and telling her to drink it.  Then he caught himself.

Everyone was pointedly not looking at Lucilla Prenderghast, and they were avoiding Harry's eyes as well.  But Blaise was smiling slightly.  Harry noticed this, just as he noticed the varying reactions of the other Slytherins around him.  Some of them looked amused, some calculating; one or two looked anxious and unnerved.  His stomach twisted.

 _Don't do things that turn you into that kind of person_ , Sirius had said.

Easier said than done.

 

 ********

xXx

 

It rained again that afternoon and the temperature started to drop a little - not much but there was a noticeable change, as though with the last few days of August the summer had decided this was it for the year.

Harry sat in the window seat in his bedroom and stared out, conscious that the weather matched his mood.  For the first time it struck him that in a matter of days the holiday would be over and he would be returning to Hogwarts.  It seemed incredible, after everything that had happened this summer, that he would be going back to school, as though after a brief taste of adulthood he was being relegated to a child's status again.  It was remote and unreal to him.

And God only knew what would be waiting for him when he got there.  His timetable was going to be different from everyone else in his year, what with continuing Animation lessons with Professor Flitwick, possibly duelling lessons or something similar with Professor Dumbledore, and undoubtedly more Occlumency with Snape.  There was the captaincy of the Slytherin Quidditch Team.  And there was Draco Malfoy.

There was a light tap on the door and Sirius looked around it.

"Fancy a cup of disgustingly milky coffee?" he asked.

Harry found himself smiling in spite of himself.  "Go on then."

"Ah, but there's a catch - you have to entertain me while we're drinking it, since Moony's buried in the library catalogue and paying me no attention."

"Do I look like a clown?"  Harry paused in the middle of taking the mug.  "Don't answer that."

"More like a Punch and Judy show," Sirius said amiably, and he took the opposite corner of the window seat to Harry.

"I can whack you with a stick if you like, Mr. Crocodile."

"That's the way to do it!" 

They both chuckled.

"When did you ever see a Punch and Judy show?" Sirius asked after the first cautious sip of his drink.  "Doesn't sound like something Petunia Dursley would go for."

"There was one in a shopping centre when I was a kid," Harry said.  "We stopped to watch it for maybe five minutes, until Dudley started screaming for something.  When did _you_ see one?  I thought wizards didn't go in for that kind of thing."

"We all went to Blackpool for the day the summer after we left school - me, your mum and dad, Moony and Peter."  Sirius smiled reminiscently.  "We spent hours in the Muggle arcades, and there was a Punch and Judy show on for the kids near the pier.  James was fascinated by it - he would have sat and watched with the kids all afternoon if we'd let him.  That was a really brilliant day out, now I come to think of it.  Bloody nippy on the beach, though, even in the middle of the summer."

"What was so interesting about a Punch and Judy show?" Harry asked, surprised.

Sirius took a moment or two to reply.  "Look," he said carefully, "what you have to understand is that people like James and me - not just purebloods, but from First Families - are raised very differently even to most ordinary wizards.  You already know how sheltered the whole community can be from Muggles and Muggle life.  It's worse for people like us because our families have almost no contact with Muggles at all and the kids are strongly encouraged to keep aloof from Muggleborns and so on.  James had quite a liberal upbringing by _my_ parents' standards, but Hogwarts was probably the first time he encountered people from Muggle families and I know that your mother's family were the first Muggles he had any significant contact with.  It's a culture shock, pure and simple, and being as curious as a kneazle James loved every bit of it."

Harry contemplated this as he sipped his coffee.  "I suppose if Mum and Dad had lived, it would have been a bit like that for me."

"I think your mum would have had something to say about that."

"Yeah, but _all_ witches and wizards live separate lives from Muggles, don't they?  The purebloods just make a bigger effort."

Sirius hesitated.  "I don't know how true that is.  I don't think it's all of us, although a majority would be a fair assessment.  There has to be some contact, after all, or there wouldn't be so many intermarriages."

"Most people meet the person they marry at Hogwarts," Harry pointed out.

"That's intermarriage with a Muggleborn," Sirius returned.  "There are intermarriages with Muggles as well, remember."

"Not many."

"No, but even so."

"Granger told me that there was an attempt to separate girls from boys at Hogwarts once," Harry said.  "It was supposedly because a few First Families got twitchy about their daughters associating with unsuitable blokes."

Sirius grinned.  "Yeah, James found an entry about that in an old Quidditch manual when we were at school.  It didn't get very far, but it did lead to some odd additions to the school uniform for a while."

"Corsets and bloomers."

"And that was just for the Head Boy."

Harry laughed reluctantly.

"What are you thinking about?" Sirius asked after a while.  "You seem a bit down."

"I'm wondering if it's worth going back to school," Harry said, and he gave Sirius a cautious look.  "I'm not just saying that.  I'm not trying to be difficult or something."

"Go on," Sirius encouraged him as he sipped his coffee.

"It's just Malfoy and everything else.  The others in Slytherin.  Having to try and lead the House.  I don't know if it's worth it.  It seems so pointless compared to everything else that needs doing."

Again, Sirius took a moment or two to consider his response.  This was utterly unlike his usual approach, and Harry wondered if this was an indication of another change in their relationship, where they both stopped to think about what they were saying instead of going for each other's throats.

"If by "everything else that needs doing" you mean Voldemort," Sirius said finally, "that's partly true, but you know that situation will develop however it will, no matter where you are.  And Harry, you have a right to be an ordinary teenager.  You have a right to finish your education, and maybe dealing with things like Draco Malfoy and your housemates seems trivial in the light of everything else that's happening to you, but it's still valuable experience in handling people that you can use in later life.  I don't like the idea of you trying to lead that pit of snakes but - "

"I don't like it either," Harry broke in.  "I like it even less since I met with them today."

Sirius hesitated, watching his face.  "Yes?"

"If they support me, it won't be because they like me or trust me or even want me to do it," Harry told him.  "They'll do it either because I've frightened the shit out of them or I've convinced them that the alternative is worse.  And I don't know which it is."  Sirius looked away for a moment, his face tightening.  Harry added, "I don't like not knowing."

"I don't like the idea of you terrorising them," Sirius told him bluntly. 

"Even though they're Slytherins?"

" _You're_ a Slytherin, Harry.  For as long as you've lived with Moony and me you've been telling us that being a Slytherin doesn't make you a bad person.  And people have been bashing me over the head, telling me to stop judging you by it and stop insisting that you're in the wrong House, because the Sorting Hat doesn't make mistakes and there's more to being a Slytherin than my family ever led me to expect."  He sighed.  "You know what?  You were right and they were right, and I was wrong.  And if I can accept that, then I have to accept that there's more to the others in your House.  But even if I didn't, Harry, they don't deserve to be ruled by fear and I've _always_ thought better of you than that.  Even if I haven't been able to tell you so."

"I don't want to terrorise them," Harry said after a moment.  "It's ... really easy though and that scares me.  I don't want to become someone I'd hate.  Another Malfoy or Tom Riddle.  But I'm not sure I know who I am anyway."

Sirius frowned.  "It's always seemed to me that you have a very strong sense of who you are."

"I don't think that's true ....  I don't feel like I know who I am most of the time."  Harry saw his puzzled look and tried to explain.  "Sometimes I feel like I don't know what's me and what's Voldemort, or how much of me Voldemort has created because of the connection between us.  I want to know if I would have been a different person if he had never existed."

"We all would have been different if he hadn't existed, but I don't think we would have been different _people_."

"Wouldn't we?"  Harry looked at him.  "What would you have been like?  If he hadn't been around when you were born and your family hadn't been affected by the things he was saying and doing, would you have still become the person you are?  What if he hadn't been there for Wormtail to be influenced by?"

"The attitudes that bred Voldemort have been around for a long time," Sirius replied, "and there have always been dark wizards.  It wasn't very long before he came along that Grindelwald was threatening all of Europe.  I like to think I would still have rejected my family's values even if Voldemort wasn't an issue.  And as for his effect on Peter - well, maybe I wouldn't have gone to Azkaban, and more importantly your parents wouldn't have died, but I can't believe any of us would have been such different people because of that."

"I think I would have been different," Harry muttered.

"Perhaps, but I think you're refining on it a bit much.  You are who and what you are, Harry.  So long as you stay true to that, you'll be okay."

"But that's what I'm saying," Harry insisted.  "If I don't know who I am, how do I stay myself?"

"Harry," Sirius said helplessly, "what do you want me to say?  I don't have the key to what's inside your head, only you have that.  All I can tell you is that to me you're uniquely yourself and I can't explain how that works.  But I do know this – you have your own principles, your own ideas of what's right and wrong, and all I would ask is that you stick to them, no matter what provocation you're offered."

Harry put his mug down and rubbed his eyes.  "I don't know if I'll be able to do that."

Sirius studied him.  "Don't think of it as a battle," he suggested.  "Think of it as a challenge.  Be creative.  Consider what people are expecting of you and surprise them.  And remember, it's not about winning."

Harry managed a crooked smile.  "It is in Slytherin, Sirius."

"But it's not about being a Slytherin for you, is it?  Winning doesn't prove you're the better man.  If you can't deal with young Malfoy by beating him in a leadership contest, there are always other ways."

Harry was silent for a while.  "I need to think about that," he said eventually.

"Fair enough."  Sirius drained his mug.  "Come on - I bought a chicken this morning, so let's surprise Moony by making a proper roast dinner for a change."

"Okay."  Harry uncurled himself from the window seat and followed his godfather downstairs.

 

xXx

 

The trip to Fancyriggs took a big chunk out of Thursday, thanks to an unscheduled visit to Clan MacDuff to take tea with Morag's cousin Donald, the Chief of Clan MacDuff.  The reasons for this visit initially bemused Sirius as much as Harry until Donald, after a lot of meandering conversation, presented Harry with a photograph album full of pictures of his mother, most of which had been taken while she was holidaying with Morag one summer.  Then the mists cleared a little, for Sirius at least.

"Was Donald gone on Lily?" he asked Morag discreetly as they were leaving.

She gave him an old-fashioned look.  "Oh aye!  Did you not know that already?"

On Friday Harry and Ron helped Sirius and Remus to crate up the old but salvageable furniture to be shipped off to restorers and second-hand shops, depending on whether it was going to be kept or disposed of.  Then there was cleaning to be done in the guest rooms that would be put to use by the Order of the Phoenix, including making up beds with clean linens.

In the afternoon Harry had one final lesson with Mr. Pettifer, which was part duelling lesson, part civic studies again.  By the time he was done there, Hermione appeared to triumphantly announce her victory over the cataloguing and packing up of the hidden "smoking room".  She found him and Ron in the library, flicking through an assortment of books in the hope of finding something that would help Ron to finish his Potions essay.

"You told me you'd finished that essay!" she said accusingly.

Ron's ears turned an odd sort of reddish purple.  "I _have_ finished it – mostly."

"You've only got two days left, Ron, and you haven't written your other essays out properly yet!"

"He'll get them done," Harry said, a little annoyed at her tone.  "He only has two inches left on this one, which is mostly summing up – "

"You don't know him like I do," Hermione snapped.  "Every year it's the same – he either tries to write them out on the train and blames everyone else when the ink spills, or he forgets entirely and has to get up before breakfast to get them done before classes start."

"Hey!"  Harry wasn't sure what annoyed him more about this – Hermione's diatribe or Ron's resigned acceptance of it.  "Will you stop talking like that?  He's not stupid and you're not his mother!  For your information, he _has_ finished everything but this essay.  Haven't you?" he said to Ron.

Ron shrugged.  "Mostly."

Hermione snorted, and the redhead looked aggravated. 

"I _have!_ " he insisted.  "I've just got to write them all out again on clean parchment."

"I knew I should have kept that Secretary Quill of Pince's," Harry remarked.

"I know you," Hermione told Ron.  "You see, Potter, he'll still be trying to write them out on the train."

"Well, I won't see," Harry said, losing patience with her.  "It's not like I'll be in your carriage, is it?"

Ron's tenuous interest in his essays vanished completely.  "What?  'Course you will!  It'll only be us and Ginny, and maybe Neville.  There'll be loads of room for another person."

"No, I mean - I can't."  Harry sighed.  "Look, I'd really rather sit with you and everything – " he paused to glare at Hermione, "even if it _is_ with Granger and all, but with Malfoy back at school we're going to have to be careful.  I can't be seen sitting with you and stuff.  It can't look like we're friends."

He half expected Ron to blow up at him, so it was a bit of a surprise when his friend opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again with an oddly arrested look on his face.  He folded his arms, looking thoughtful.

"Malfoy!"  Hermione looked from one of them to the other, shocked.  "What do you mean?  I thought he was going to Durmstrang this year?"

"You thought wrong then, didn't you?"  Harry's retort lacked bite though.  Pinching at Hermione about her nagging Ron was one thing, but the Malfoy situation was an entirely different matter.  "He failed the entrance requirements, and Dumbledore's pretty much been forced to let him come back to Hogwarts."

She was gratifyingly outraged.  "That's disgusting!  He nearly killed someone and tried to put the blame on someone else – what does he have to do to get expelled?  And what about you, Potter?  I can't believe everyone goes to so much effort to protect you, only for them to allow him to live in the same House as you again!"

"Yeah, well … I've got a few ideas about that, don't you worry."  Harry looked at Ron warily.  "It'd help if people don't get the idea we're friends though.  I don't like it – I hate it, but – "

"Might be difficult," was Ron's unexpected reply.  "There was all that stuff when you burned your hands - people aren't blind, you know."

"It's been a while since then," Harry said.  "And there's been a long holiday - nobody's going to know you've been here most of the summer."

"So are we going to spend the whole year ignoring each other?" Ron asked.  He seemed remarkably calm.

A whole year?  Harry's stomach lurched unpleasantly at the thought.  "No."

"Oh?"

"If I thought that, I wouldn't go back to school at all."

"Okay."  Ron nodded slowly.  "So - how's this going to work?"

The corner of Harry's mouth twitched.  "We'll just have to be sneaky - won't we?"

They looked at each other and Ron began to grin. 

Hermione took one look at their faces and threw her hands up.  "Don't tell me – I don't want to know!" she said, rolling her eyes.

 

xXx

 

On Saturday a surveyor arrived to look at the damaged front entrance.  Sirius firmly shooed Harry and Ron out of the house with instructions to spend the day doing as they liked, provided they stayed on the Manor grounds.  Harry borrowed one of his godfather's brooms for Ron and they spent a good part of the morning flying, using a variety of objects for Bludgers, Quaffles and Snitches in impromptu games of Quidditch, racing each other around the house, and trying out some semi-dangerous trick flying techniques.  After a leisurely lunch eaten by the stream, and some paddling around and splashing each other, the morning's exercise caught up with them and Harry dragged Ron into the coach house where they made good, if illicit use of the ridiculously luxurious Cinderella coach he and Hermione had found previously.

Ron went home again after dinner but Harry didn't protest much, being well satisfied with the day's recreation. 

Sunday morning brought church and a final Confirmation class with Father Marius.

"If you're not ready now, you never will be," the young priest observed ruefully.

For the first time it occurred to Harry to ask, "When will I be Confirmed then?"

Father Marius hesitated.  "That's up to his Grace the Bishop and Father Ignatius, but Confirmations are usually held at a church's Patronal Day celebration and our Patron is St. Ursula, of course, so that's the 21st October."

"I'll be at school," Harry pointed out.

"You're likely to be at school whenever it's held, but don't worry about that – His Grace will arrange things with Professor Dumbledore and your godparents."  The priest smiled at him.  "I'll try to come and see you for a practice run when we know the date for sure!"

Harry accepted this, although he did wonder how much inconvenience would be caused for the Order of the Phoenix in covering the church for the ceremony.  Oh well, that wasn't his problem.  If they didn't like it (and judging by George Weasley's reaction, some of them didn't), they were welcome to complain and get it stopped if they could.  It wasn't as though Harry was desperate to be Confirmed, after all.

He spent the rest of the day sorting out his school things and searching the library for more books on Animation.  Sirius had given him permission to take any he found, provided he could carry them.  Since this wasn't likely to be a problem (Remus had already stretched and enlarged the inside of his trunk to include a sealed compartment at the bottom for his formal robes), Harry was stacking books up left, right and centre, although some of the piles were there just so that he could see the look on Sirius's face when he finally came to pack.  In fact, most of the books appeared to hold very little information on the subject and he would weed out all but the most relevant at the last minute.

By the time he came to put everything in the trunk, it was just as well that it was as capacious as Mary Poppins's carpet bag.  NEWTs candidates used a size 4 cauldron, for one thing, which was much bigger than the size 2 used by other years.  Harry was also concerned about the possibility of spillages from his Potions ingredients, given that his formal robes would be in the trunk, but Remus assured him that the hidden compartment was water- and odour-tight, and in any case he had a new spell-cushioned crate for all the bottles.  Then there was underwear, socks, shirts, sweaters, robes, ties, trousers and shoes, and his washing bag and shaving kit … plus Quidditch gear, a broom-servicing kit, his things for Divination and Herbology, a telescope and sextant, parchment, ink and quills, and Hedwig's owl treats and a box of sweets.  And the books, of course.

Sirius took one look at the mountain of gear spread out across Harry's bed, the window seats and the floor, raised a mocking brow at his godson, and began to spell-shrink things.  At which point Harry grinned sheepishly and sent at least three piles of the books flying back to the library on a charm.  Even so, he and Remus found it a tricky exercise fitting everything into the trunk.

"You have two dozen cravats in a box," Sirius said, when they were carefully folding his beautiful bottle-green velvet robes into the hidden compartment.  "Do _not_ fiddle with them; they're perfect and ready to wear, but if you fiddle you'll mess them up and you'll have to get the school's elves to launder them all again for you." 

"Trust me, I'm not planning on touching anything in that compartment until I have to."

"Will one winter-weight cloak be enough?" Remus asked.

"Of course."  Harry tried not to roll his eyes.  God, it was like a re-run of the end of the Easter holiday.

"What about your gloves and scarf?"

"I won't need them for at least a month or more – "

"Put them in anyway.  Why should Hedwig have to cart your things around for you?"  Remus was bordering on snappish, for it was the full moon the following night.

"At least she won't get fat …."

Hedwig hooted reproachfully from her stand by the window.

They managed to fit the last of the miniaturised library in and shut the lid of the trunk with a snap.  Then they all stood and looked around.  The room suddenly seemed very empty.

"Is that everything?" Sirius asked.

"I think so."

Remus drew in a deep breath.  "Well … shall we get a last cup of hot chocolate before bed?"

 

xXx

 

Two hours later, having had a long soak in the bath, Harry lay wide awake and staring up at the canopy of his bed.  His brain didn't seem to want to switch off and it was necessary for it to switch off before he dared try to sleep.  The last thing he needed the night before going back to school was a visit from Voldemort in his dreams.

It didn't seem entirely real.  After everything that had happened over the holiday – and it felt like the most exhausting summer holiday he'd had yet – it was incredibly hard to switch his mind back into "school" mode and mentally prepare himself for being a student again.  His NEWTs exams seemed very remote and now, more than ever, he was questioning what use they would be to him.  Nothing Mr. Pettifer had said to him about his duty as a First Rank wizard and future member of the Wizengamot had changed his outlook; it felt like he was focussed on one goal and one goal only – to destroy Voldemort.  Nothing had changed his conviction that this goal would in all likelihood end his own life.  If he tried to imagine how his life would be once the would-be wizard-king was gone, he couldn't do it.

And it felt like he was trapped in one place until that happened, his whole existence just waiting and quietly ticking over.  What the hell had NEWTs and school and things like the leadership of Slytherin got to do with that?  Except that he didn't really have anything better to do in the meantime.

Frustrated, Harry sat up and thumped his pillows into submission, then heaved over to lie on his side.  Light from the window, from a prickling of stars across the dark sky and the uneasy glow of a nearly full moon, distracted him from his attempts to clear his mind.  He wished now that he hadn't had a quiet wank in the bathtub; he was restless, but not _that_ kind of restless, which was frustrating because it might have helped him to sleep.  Annoyed, he rolled onto his back again. 

 _Thump_.  Suddenly there was a warm weight in the middle of his stomach.  Harry blinked.

"Mrrrrooowww!"

Rosebud was blinking back at him, her front paws planted on his chest and her whiskers tickling his chin as she peered at him.

"What are you doing here, Rosie?"  A thought occurred to Harry.  "Can't Ron sleep either?"

She shook herself and a rolled-up piece of parchment dropped down from where it had been tucked into her collar.

 _"Lumos."_   Harry picked it up and unrolled it, squinting in the light from his wand on the bedside table.

 _I love you.  I thought I ought to say that before we have to pretend we don't like each other anymore._

 _"Accio quill!"_    He spread the bit of parchment precariously on the mattress and scratched out a reply:

 _There's always the Room of Requirement.  I love you too._

"Here, Rosie …."  He rolled up the note and tucked it back into her collar, scratching the plush fur on the top of her head.  She accepted the tribute as her due, then scrambled under a fold of his sheets and disappeared.

Suddenly more relaxed, Harry returned the quill to his drawer, put out the light and slid down beneath the sheets, curling up on his side.  Whatever would happen from tomorrow would happen as it was meant to.  Until then, he cleared his mind and settled into sleep.

 **– The End –**

**Author's Note:**

> I'm indebted to Jonem and Jcomer on LiveJournal, who were kind enough to do some research for me into alternative names for certain sex toys. Also, an interesting situation arose just as I was writing the last few scenes of this story. Having, all through writing it, referred to the head of a pureblood family as the paterfamilias (and considering myself very clever for doing so) I was completely thrown to see that Sam Starbuck/Copperbadge had come up with the same idea in The Cartographer's Craft. It was pure coincidence, and presumably what comes of liking Romans, but Sam will confirm that I wibbled to him about it all the same :-)
> 
> Songs Of Praise is a long-running religious programme shown every Sunday on BBC1. It's only mentioned briefly but I thought I'd better explain it to those who've been fortunate enough to escape it until now – basically, the TV crew descend on a different church each Sunday to film the service and talk to members of the congregation.
> 
> Any classical pornography in this story is indirectly the fault of Beth Ann, who told me all about the wind-chimes in the first place, and then insisted on asking Sirius and Remus about the mural in the bathhouse. Unorthodox use of letter-openers was entirely my idea though; as a secretary I know that a nice pointy letter-opener can be one of the most versatile tools a girl can have.
> 
> Finally, the sharp-eyed will note that I've ignored the conventional year of birth for the Marauders (1960) in favour of approximately 1958/1959, which I personally feel fits a little better with J. K. Rowling's statement that James, Lily and co were about twenty-two or –three when the events of Hallowe'en 1981 occurred.
> 
> That's all ... for this part of the story :-)


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